Long before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, conflict was simmering on Europe’s borders. In overlooked territories in eastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus – from the Balkans and Cyprus to Abkhazia on the fringes of Georgia – local disputes spiral into regional crises, global alliances are forged and broken, and power is brokered while the West looks elsewhere.

In Hinterlands, acclaimed correspondent Hannah Lucinda Smith draws on vivid first-hand encounters with politicians, spies and ordinary people caught in the crosshairs to paint a gripping portrait of Europe at its edges – and the struggles that will define its future.