Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands
Author: Richard Sakwa
Publications:
– December 18, 2014
– March 30, 2016
– July 14, 2022
SUMMARY
Playlist, with a summary, and discussions with Richard Sakwa
ABSTRACT
The unfolding crisis in Ukraine has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War. As Russia and Ukraine tussle for Crimea and the eastern regions, relations between Putin and the West have reached an all-time low. How did we get here? Richard Sakwa here unpicks the context of conflicted Ukrainian identity and of Russo-Ukrainian relations and traces the path to the recent disturbances through the events which have forced Ukraine, a country internally divided between East and West, to choose between closer union with Europe or its historic ties with Russia. In providing the first full account of the ongoing crisis, Sakwa analyses the origins and significance of the Euromaidan Protests, examines the controversial Russian military intervention and annexation of Crimea, reveals the extent of the catastrophe of the MH17 disaster and looks at possible ways forward following the October 2014 parliamentary elections. In doing so, he explains the origins, developments and global significance of the internal and external battle for Ukraine. With all eyes focused on the region, Sakwa unravels the myths and misunderstandings of the situation, providing an essential and highly readable account of the struggle for Europe’s contested borderlands.
Source: University of Kent – Richard Sakwa – Books – https://www.kent.ac.uk/politics-international-relations/people/2273/sakwa-richard
Available at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/frontline-ukraine-9781784535278/
RICHARD SAKWA
Professor Sakwa joined the School in 1987, was promoted to a professorship in 1996 and was Head of School between 2001 and 2007, and in 2010 he once again took over as Head of School until 2014. While completing his doctorate on Moscow politics during the Civil War (1918-21) he spent a year on a British Council scholarship at Moscow State University (1979-80), and then worked for two years in Moscow in the ‘Mir’ Science and Technology Publishing House. Before moving to Kent he lectured at the University of Essex and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prof. Sakwa is Honorary Professor, Faculty of Political Science, Moscow State University. He was an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House (2002-20), a Senior Research Fellow at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in Moscow (2014-2024), and a member of Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (2002-2022).
Source: University of Kent – https://www.kent.ac.uk/politics-international-relations/people/2273/sakwa-richard
Additional comment (Admin)
Since Sakwa’s book is from 2014 (first edition), and since we live today, in 2026, so, 12 years later, there have been published newer books, with details that were not published yet, because not known yet, in 2014, and not researched yet in 2014, in-depth, with for instance video analysis of the Maidan Massacre in 2014.
These books were recently analysed on YouTube, in videos published by academics, interviewing the authors of the books:
- The Russia Ukraine War And Its Origins, From the Maidan to the Ukraine War – Ukrainian-Canadian Professor Ivan Katchanovski. The book offers a.o.t. the evidence that the Maidan Massacre was planned, prepared by Washington, USA and executed by pro-west terrorists. Ivan Katchanovski has been interviewed by several academics on YouTube, like professor Glenn Diesen and by assoc. professor Pascal Lottaz, Neutrality Studies. Also by once ambassador for the UK in Moscow: Ian Proud: channel “The Peacemonger”, a very excellent interview, recently published. Playlist.
- What I Saw In Ukraine – 2015-2022 – Diary of an International Observer – Benoît Paré (OSCE observer) – Playlist with Benoît Paré, interviewed by several investigative journalism channels, and academics, like Neutrality Studies (Pascal Lottaz)
MH17
SAKWA’S BOOK (2014, 2016, 2022)
Admin ordered the book especially because Richard Sakwa writes (as is written in the abstract of the book) about the downing of the MH17, on July 17, 2014, above South East Ukraine.
BENOÎT PARÉ’S BOOK (2025) – I am reading right now the book “What I saw in Ukraine” written by Benoît Paré, and I expected to find also information about the MH17 in that book, but it is completely absent, while he was there from March 2014 til March 2022. Right now I am discussing this with the author. More later.
KEES VAN DER PIJL’S BOOK (2018) There are more strange “coincidences” around the MH17-downing and the date of the downing. Professor Kees van der Pijl wrote a book in 2018, about all these remarkable strange unexplainable details:
“Flight MH17, Ukraine and the new Cold War: Prism of disaster“
VAN DER PIJL’S BOOK: NOT AVAILABLE IN DUTCH – Van der Pijl’s book was not published in the Dutch language because there was no interest in it, was told. While the most of the 298 victims (of which 80 children) of the downing were Dutch. The case was “solved” in 2022, and the final court decision was that Russia was the culprit, but that was the conclusion in a trial in which already before it started was known that this would be the final decision. The trial was therefore a show.
BELLINGCAT – Another remarkable detail is that pro-west Bellingcat was founded in July 2014, in the month of the downing of the MH17, by Eliot Higgins, who has received in the meantime a doctorate of honour from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, for his “research”, based on western propaganda. Bellingcat played a crucial role in the examinations of the downing, AND the trial. More here.
RUTTE, PM OF THE NETHERLANDS 2010-2024, NOW NATO SECRETARY, A COINCIDENCE? – An overlooked detail til today is that now NATO secretary general Rutte served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2010 to 2024. So, during the years before the Maidan Massacre and coup in 2014, during the Maidan Massacre and coup, during the time of the downing of the MH17, during the time that professor Kees van der Pijl wrote his book about the MH17, that was decided that professor Kees van der Pijl’s book would not be published in the Dutch language, and he was PM during the trials that took place in the Netherlands, also when the last court decision was made.
THE ROLE OF SCHIPHOL, AMSTERDAM AIRPORT, THE NETHERLANDS – It is unacceptable and naive to believe that all this is a coincidence. Not either, that Schiphol/KLM did not follow the decision made by Air France and British Airways, to avoid the Ukrainian air space because of the war that was going on in Ukraine. Who is accountable for the safety of those who were flying over Ukraine, until some hours after the downing on 17 July 2014? Who is accountable for Malaysia Airlines’ decision NOT to avoid Ukraine? What is the role of a PM in this decision / informing / requesting? What is the role of Malaysian Airlines? A Malaysian Airlines official was on the spot in Hrabove, Donetsk, Ukraine, the black box was found, he took it, but before he returned to Malaysia he was forced to hand it over to what seemed to be “superiors”. The black box is nowhere to be found anymore. A lot more is exposed in the documentary: MH17, Call For Justice.
PARTNERS OF THE OSCE – When reading Benoît Paré’s book, so the book of an independent because OSCE — Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [partner of the EU, United Nations, NATO, and the Council of Europe] — observer, and providing details about the war in Ukraine, also in the area where the MH17 was flying over with passenger-flights, I find it unacceptable to believe that Mark Rutte was NOT informed, and that he took the risk — or the opportunity! — NOT to request KLM to avoid flying over Ukraine. But, when taking into consideration that he knew already about a possible NATO job, this was part of a bigger plan. To create hatred against Russia, so much, that it legalized NATO expansion, and to blame Russia for all what was and still is provoked.
