OVERREACH: THE INSIDE STORY OF PUTIN AND RUSSIA’S WAR AGAINST UKRAINE. OWEN MATTHEWS IN CONVERSATION WITH MARK JENKINS.

The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most serious geopolitical crisis since the Second World War – and yet at the heart of the conflict is a mystery. Vladimir Putin apparently lurched from a calculating, subtle master of opportunity to a reckless gambler, putting his regime – and Russia itself – at risk of destruction. Why?

Drawing on over 25 years’ experience as a correspondent in Moscow, as well as his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, journalist Owen Matthews takes us through the poisoned historical roots of the conflict, into the Covid bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of paranoia about Western threats, and finally into the inner circle around Ukrainian president and unexpected war hero Volodimir Zelensky.

Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreach tells the story not only of the war’s causes but how the first six months unfolded.

Owen Matthew’s astonishing, acclaimed, and definitive investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol.

With its panoramic view, Overreach is an authoritative, unmissable record of a conflict that shocked Europe to its core.

Award-winning correspondent, historian and fluent Russian-speaker Owen Matthews has lived and worked in Moscow for over 25 years. He has built up an unrivalled network of contacts who have worked in Putin’s administration, security services, armed forces and propaganda machine. He worked first as a staffer for The Moscow Times and then as Newsweek magazine’s Moscow Bureau Chief. He has covered conflicts in Bosnia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Georgia and Eastern Ukraine.

A Telegraph Book of the Year and Shortlisted for the Parliamentary Book Awards.

‘A remarkable achievement, with Matthews’s expert eye …buzzing from one side of the conflict to the other’ Telegraph

‘A vivid and revealing first draft of history … fascinating’ The FT

‘There will be many more books on Ukraine, but Owen Matthews’ has produced an interim account of special value.’ Daily Mail

‘A wave of books about the war is about to crash over our bookshops but it is hard not to feel sorry for most of their authors. Owen Matthews has already set a painfully high benchmark for those who follow.’  The Times

‘A classic as enduring as Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia’ Literary Review

Mark Jenkins spent the first thirteen years of his professional life as a regular officer in the Welsh Guards, serving on operations in Northern Ireland, and the border between Belize and Guatemala, as well as on the staff of Field Marshal the Lord Guthrie, in Whitehall. Before going to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Mark had studied theology at King’s College, London, specialising in the history of relations between the Greek West and the Latin West, during the late Medieval Era. Although selected for the Joint Services Staff College, Mark resigned his commission in 2001 and set off on a journey from Istanbul to Moscow, via an extended period of study on Mount Athos, spiritual powerhouse of the Eastern Orthodox faith.

Travelling on from Mount Athos, Mark travelled deep into the heart of the Russian Federation, and spent several weeks in the Mary El Republic, in a remote, forest based, hermitage of the “non possessor” tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, a tradition that goes back to St Nilus of Soros, a hesychast monk whose communities laid the foundations for Muscovite Russia, following the destruction of Kievan Russia by the Mongols. Mark’s interest in Russia had begun when, as a boy, he had read Fitzroy Maclean’s book “Holy Russia.”

Having completed his two year journey into Russia, Mark then spent time on the staff of HRH Prince Ghazi, Special Advisor and Personal Envoy to HM The King of Jordan, and as the Director of Inter Faith Affairs at the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan.  Between 2011 and 2019 Mark delivered security related risk mitigation work for commercial clients in some of the remotest parts of Africa and the Middle East, including the Ogaden Desert in Eastern Ethiopia, the Sinai Desert in Egypt, and Northern Kenya. He is currently the Secretary of the Flyfishers’ Club, and is also writing a book about Mount Athos, and the lost knowledge of the imagination.