Martin Sixsmith is a bestselling author, television and radio presenter and journalist. He has worked in the past as a BBC correspondent in Moscow and as adviser to the Labour Party. In 2019 he published a novel called An Unquiet Heart based on the life of a Russian poet. He has also published an account of the Litvinenko murder, The Litvinenko File, and made a documentary film in 2008 exploring the legacy of the KGB in today’s Russia and the FSB. Having completed degrees in History and Russian Studies, Daniel Sixsmith worked as an archaeologist in Siberia and Kazakhstan before turning to historical research and writing. He contributed to the BBC Radio 4 series Russia: The Wild East, and co-authored The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind, which was short-listed for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Non-fiction in 2023.
Clear, lively, and not afraid to be controversial: a stimulating anatomisation of Russia’s poisonous relationship with the West, Ukraine, and its own dark past. -- Anna Reid, author of Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine and A Dirty Little War This is a very important account of the build-up to Russia’s invasions of Ukrainian territory. Most books and articles on the Russia-Ukraine war are very one-sided; the great merit of this book is that the Sixsmiths take a long historical perspective and enable the reader to appreciate the aspirations of both sides. The authors focus on the defects of Western societies as well as on those of Russia. This is a study that needs to be taken into account when we try to understand the lessons of the war. -- Geoffrey Hosking, Emeritus Professor of Russian History, University College London A fascinating and highly readable account of the background to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, informed by Martin Sixsmith’s long involvement with the region since his days as a BBC correspondent covering the last days of the Soviet Union. -- Peter Conradi, author of Who Lost Russia? From the Collapse of the USSR to Putin's War on Ukraine