Like most people these days, I have been trying to learn more about the regional war that Putin has launched against Ukraine and to put it all in context. Sadly, I must admit that I have always paid more attention to Russia and the Soviet Union than Ukraine even though I have deep connections to that nation. If like me you are looking for more context — geopolitical, historical and otherwise — into the current, ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, here are some potentially helpful resources that may will give insight into the circumstances that led to what is now the largest conflict to erupt in Europe since World War II.

• Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine by Anna Reid
• The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy
• Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum
• The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation by Andrew Wilson
• Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know by Serhy Yekelchyk
• Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine by Elizabeth A. Wood, William E. Pomeranz, E. Wayne Merry, and Maxim Trudolyubov
• Ukraine and the Art of Strategy by Lawrence Freedman
• Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland by Karl Schlögel
• Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West and the “New Cold War” by Gordon M. Hahn
• In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine by Tim Judah
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• The Battle for Ukrainian: A Comparative Perspective Edited by Michael S. Flier and Andrea Graziosi
• The Cossack Myth: History and Nationhood in the Age of Empires by Serhii Plokhy
• Culture, Nation, and Identity: The Ukrainian-Russian Encounter, 1600-1945 Edited by Andreas Kappeler,  Zenon Kohut, Frank Sysyn, and Mark von Hagen
• The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present by Serhii Plokhy
• The Future of the Past: New Perspectives on Ukrainian History Edited by Serhii Plokhy
• A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples by Paul Robert Magocsi
• Making Ukraine Soviet: Literature and Cultural Politics Under Lenin and Stalin by Olena Palko
• Revolutionary Ukraine, 1917-2017: History’s Flashpoints and Today’s Memory Wars by Myroslav Shkandrij
• Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire from Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times by Myroslav Shkandrij
• Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954 by George Liber
• Ukraine and Europe: Cultural Encounters and Negotiations Edited by Giovanna Brogi Bercoff, Marko Pavlyshyn, and Serhii Plokhy
• Ukraine: Contested Nationhood in a European Context by Ulrich Schmid
• Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals Edited by Volodymyr Yermolenko
• Ukraine, the Middle East, and the West by Thomas M. Prymak