Mathers, Joseph War in Ukraine. Volume 8: Battle of Kyiv, February-April 2022

A volume from the "Europe @ War" series. The assault on Kiev represented the main effort of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and remains arguably the most decisive battle of the war. In a month of fierce fighting on the approaches to the capital, the crème de la crème of the Russian military was lost and the survival of Ukraine as a nation was secured. Volume 8 of the War in Ukraine series is one of the first published histories to examine this battle in its entirety, from the dramatic aerial assault on Hostomel to the shredding of the Russian units that fled the encirclement during the Ukrainian counter-offensive. Volume 8 draws on a synthesis of newly available Ukrainian and Russian accounts and open-source intelligence gathering, and builds on the work of volumes 2, 5 and 6 to paint a fuller picture of the Russian advance on Kiev and their eventual defeats. The opening events of the operation are reimagined in the light of contemporary evidence, revealing, for example, new aspects of the controversial Ukrainian counter-attack on Hostomel airport in the late evening of 24 February, while many previously undiscovered engagements of the subsequent fighting are detailed here for the first time.