When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Kateryna hung up her dresses, Oksana and Stanislav put down their lawyers’ briefs and Oksen slammed shut his philosophy textbooks. Alongside thousands of their fellow citizens, they strapped on armour, picked up weapons and chose to risk their lives for the freedom and independence of their homeland. Many would never return. Covering the invasion first-hand, journalist Tom Mutch witnessed the forging of an ‘iron generation’ of young Ukrainians. With eyewitness reporting from all the major battlegrounds and front lines, The Dogs of Mariupol recounts the war’s notorious encounters, such as the Siege of Mariupol, but also uncovers untold stories, like the civilian guerrilla army fighting overwhelming odds in Sumy. This is not a triumphalist account of Ukraine’s fight, however. Powerful and uncompromising, it painstakingly documents the immense human catastrophe wrought on Ukrainian society and the divisions between those who fought and those who fled. It also delves deeper to answer important questions: could the Russian plan to capture Kyiv have succeeded? Did Ukraine make a fatal error by committing for so long to the defence of Bakhmut? And with more western support, could Ukraine have won the war outright?
