The first book of reportage from the front line of the Ukraine war. This is a powerful, moving first draft of history written by the Guardian journalist and author of Collusion and Shadow State, who is now banned from entering Russia.

For months, the omens had pointed in one scarcely believable direction: Russia was about to invade Ukraine. And yet, the world was stunned by the epochal scale of the assault that began in February 2022. It was an attempt by one nation to devour another.

Invasion is Luke Harding’s chronicle of the war that changed everything. He spent months reporting on the ground during the build up to the conflict and afterward; his book tells of the initial days of shock and panic, the grim reality of this ongoing war, and the  human stories behind the headlines. Invasion also offers portraits of the the war’s two great personalities. One, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is an actor-turned-president who rallied support on a global stage. The other, Vladimir Putin, is a dictator who dwells in a strange and unreachable realm. Harding examines the ideological, religious and personal reasons behind Putin’s decision to invade. And he confronts the question: which side will prevail in this terrible war?

 Harding is one of the best experts on Putin’s Russia. Invasion reads like an exciting military-political thriller, but all its characters and events are true. — Andrey Kurkov