Luke Harding And Gideon Rachman On The Ukraine War

5x15 is thrilled to welcome best-selling writer and journalist Luke Harding to talk about his new book Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival, a powerful and urgent account of the war in Ukraine.

Reporting from Ukraine as foreign correspondent for the Guardian, Luke Harding has had unique insights into this conflict. Invasion, which is the first book of reportage from the front line, is a 'superb first draft of history' (Anne Applebaum) that examines the personal, religious and ideological motivations behind Putin’s decision to invade, and offers a moving testament to Ukrainian survival.

For this special 5x15 event, Luke will be in conversation with Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times and author of The Age of the Strongman, to discuss the issues that are essential to understanding this terrible war: the factors behind it, the unfolding developments, and its possible outcomes.

Author royalties from this edition of Invasion will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.

Praise for Luke Harding

'Compelling, important and heartbreaking with all the urgency and immediacy of outstanding war reportage, here is the Russian invasion of Ukraine minute by minute, political and personal, from the cabinets of power to the streets and apartments of ordinary Ukrainians by a master reporter and analyst.' - SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

'Luke Harding has once again written a superb first draft of history, this time of the Ukrainian war. An excellent, moving account of an ongoing tragedy.' - ANNE APPLEBAUM

'Brilliant . . . Harding is one of the best experts on Putin's Russia. Invasion reads like an exciting military-political thriller, but all its characters and events are true.' - ANDREY KURKOV

'Luke Harding is one of the best reporters in the world.' - ROBERTO SAVIANO

LUKE HARDING is an award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian. He has reported from Delhi, Berlin and Moscow and has also covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya and Syria. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian’s Moscow bureau chief. The Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the cold war and in summer 2022 put him on an official blacklist. He is the author of Mafia State and co-author of WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken (nominated for the Orwell Prize) and The Snowden Files. Two of Harding’s books have been made into films; The Fifth Estate and Snowden.

GIDEON RACHMAN is the Chief Foreign Affairs columnist for the Financial Times. In 2016 he won the Orwell Prize for Journalism and was named Commentator of the Year at the European Press Prize awards. Previously he worked for The Economist for fifteen years, and has served as a foreign correspondent in Washington, Bangkok and Brussels. His new book The Age of the Strongman examines the new nationalism in Russia, Europe, and beyond, asking what forces are in place to keep these strongmen in check?

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