Book review: Fresh, relevant, and concise

Donnacha Ó Beacháin’s central concern is Russian imperialism and — similar to other empires — the damage it causes to those at the receiving end

Two central chapters explore Russian president Vladimir Putin’s two wars in Ukraine — first, the annexation of Crimea and Donbas in 2014 and second, the full-scale invasion in 2022.

• Unfinished Empire: Russian Imperialism in Ukraine and the Near Abroad 
• Donnacha Ó Beacháin
• Agenda, £24.99

The time it takes to write a book, and the gap between completing a book and it being published, makes tackling contemporary events tricky.

This is particularly so in the turbulent rollercoaster that is world politics and conflict.

But Professor Donnacha Ó Beacháin has risen to the task in his new book, Unfinished Empire: Russian Imperialism in Ukraine and the Near Abroad.

It is not just a study of contemporary politics. It has the added heft of history: charting the rise of Russian imperialism since the 15th century, Russian interests during communism, the post-Soviet era, and Russia’s resurgence under Vladimir Putin.

The author’s landscape extends from Finland to the Baltics, focusing, naturally, on Ukraine, then onto the South Caucasus and the ‘Stans’ — the five Central Asian countries.

Ó Beacháin, a professor of politics in DCU, complements academic knowledge with extensive personal experience of the so-called Russian “Near Abroad”, having lived and worked for 12 years in the region, conducting research in every post-Soviet state.

There are other reasons to commend his book: it is refreshingly short at 218 pages — just 163 pages of the core book and the remainder a chronology, references, primary sources, and bibliography; and it is written in plain English.

People move properties from an office building destroyed by a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, last month. Picture: Evgeniy Maloletka/ AP

Ó Beacháin’s central concern is Russian imperialism and — similar to other empires — the damage it causes to those at the receiving end.

He covers the expansion of what was a small country to a sprawling land empire — from the reigns of Ivan ‘The Terrible’, Peter I — who Putin is a fan of — to Catherine II (The Great).

The reader learns of the grim fate for many indigenous peoples on the way, such as the Circassians. Ó Beacháin writes: 

“As many as 1.5m Circassians lived in the Caucasus in 1860 of whom almost half are estimated to have perished as a result of Russia’s annihilationist campaign.”

Under communism, state-induced famines claimed at least four million lives in Ukraine and a third of Kazakhstan’s indigenous population.

Two central chapters cover Putin’s two wars in Ukraine — first, the annexation of Crimea and Donbas in 2014 and second, the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Ó Beacháin authoritatively dispatches the various ‘reasons’ Putin cited for the invasion — denazification, demilitarisation/spread of Nato, and protection of ethnic Russians.

Separate chapters follow on Belarus, Moldova, South Caucasus, and the Central Asian states.

In his final chapter, Ó Beacháin sums up: Russia’s war on Ukraine has a “clear, genocidal intent”; Putin has created the “very bogey” he most feared — a Russia-hating Ukraine bent on joining the EU and Nato and has pushed Finland and Sweden into joining Nato.

The author is critical of the EU and the US under Biden in the level and speed of their military help to Ukraine, stating the “war could have ended quickly” if Ukraine got what they asked for at the time.

Ó Beacháin knows that Trump II is the unknown factor — a US President who sees Ukraine as a “pawn in a much larger game” and how this has “emboldened Putin”.

The author is clear what has to happen: Europe needs a sustainable peace; accountability for war crimes is essential and, more fundamentally, “Russian defeat is necessary”.

Perhaps because of space reasons, he does not set out exactly how this might happen or what the risks of implementing this might be.

But Ó Beacháin finds hope in the ultimate concern of Putin — to stay in power and how this matters more than success in Ukraine. 

Ó Beacháin believes that if Putin sees that continuing the war will weaken his reign, the faster the war will end.

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