The New Total War

Synopsis

Shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction or Fiction by a Parliamentarian at the Westminster Book Awards 2025 From the revolutionary use of drones to staged coups, child abduction and psychological warfare, the war in Ukraine is like no other. It is a new form of total war, combining traditional military force with all the non-military tools of the Russian state. The 2022 invasion was just the next stage of a conflict that Russia has been fighting since 2005, using all the tactics at its disposal to control Ukraine's politics and wreak havoc. Combining over a decade of research, astute analysis and powerful stories from the front line, and including striking photographs of the people and scenes he encountered along the way, Bob Seely has written the authoritative guide to this new form of conflict. Travelling extensively throughout Ukraine, Seely meets figures such as Panoushka, the sniper who continues to fight despite the loss of her fiancé, and Ksenia, the seventeen-year-old who journeyed through Russia searching for her abducted younger brother. Above all, Seely argues that understanding Moscow's new total war is critical because Russia considers itself at war with the West as well as Ukraine, directing some of the tactics used there against us. Insightful, gripping and at times moving, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the unconventional methods Russia and other authoritarian states will use to challenge the West for global supremacy and undermine our beliefs, power and influence.