Did Lenin really create the nation of Ukraine with a stroke of his pen? Was even its greatest hero in fact a Nazi? Just what does it owe to the benevolence of Catherine the Great? Whatever else it is, the Russian invasion has been an assault on historical truth - a mythic struggle in the name of an imperial unity that is itself no more than a myth. Yet the lies didn't start in 2022, and the truth of Ukrainian history has always been slipperier than any simple patriot might wish.

In War and Punishment, Mikhail Zygar chronicles how Russia was led to the brink of violence by more than 300 years of fake history, folk tales and propaganda, from the legendary deeds of the Cossacks to the 1970s spy novels that thrilled a young Vladimir Putin. With a virtuoso display of erudition and scholarhsip, he penetrates this fog to reconstruct the strange but true stories of Russo-Ukrainian relations over the past centuries, and uncover the often absurd origins of Russia's imperial delusions.

His insights are all the more valuable because of his extraordinary connections. A noted expert on the Putin circle, Zygar also has extensive contacts with President Zelensky and his staff. And though he is now labelled a foreign agent in Russia, he has obtained many candid interviews with witnesses on both sides of the war - from oligarchs to former presidents, gangsters to comedians. With the help of their frank testimony, here is the real story behind Russia's dream of conquest.