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Putin's first decade was a time of comparative stability and prosperity. If he had stopped there, future Russians might have seen him as the man who put their country securely back on the map. But his second decade was marked by increasing repression at home and adventurism abroad. His resentment at the collapse of empire and his determination to Make Russia Great Again were reflected and magnified by the even more virulently nationalist "philosophers" and churchmen who surrounded him.

His obsessions came disastrously together when he became determined to restore what he regarded as the natural unity of the East Slav peoples -- the Ukrainians and the Belarusians -- under unchallenged Russian leadership. He launched his war against Ukraine without giving his generals time to plan it properly, and in the mistaken belief that most Ukrainians would welcome his soldiers as liberators. Matthews tells how the war unfolded in vivid detail. He brings the story right up to September. Though he couldn't include the humiliating Russian withdrawal from Kherson, he does cover Putin's politically risky decision to impose conscription on people who had hitherto supported his war.

Galeotti specializes in Russian military history: an early book was about the Russians' first victory over the Mongols in the fifteenth century. In recent years he has produced an engaging short history of Russia and a usefully skeptical look at Putin the man. His latest book is about the way Putin has used Russia's armed forces over the past three decades. Full of technical detail that may daunt non-specialists, it was mostly written before Putin attacked Ukraine. In places that shows, even though he has added a chapter entitled "Ukraine 2022: Putin's Last War?"

The West habitually overestimates Russia's military capacity, and Galeotti ruefully admits that he contributed to the paranoia by inventing the phrase "the Gerasimov Doctrine" to describe some thoughts by the Russian chief of staff about "hybrid warfare." Overexcited commentators thought the Russians had invented a novel way of threatening NATO. The Russians are of course investigating new techniques and gadgets, such as cyberwarfare and drones. So are the Americans and their allies, and they are likely to be at least as good at it as the Russians. But many of the alleged innovations of hybrid warfare -- disinformation, psychological warfare, political disruption -- have been around since warfare began.

Putin gave his generals substantial resources to reform the demoralized army he had inherited. They drew on the lessons of Russia's two brutal wars in Chechnya at the turn of the millennium, the brief but muddled attack on Georgia in 2008, the almost bloodless annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the successful intervention in Syria which followed. They produced what looked like a lean, well-equipped twenty-first-century force.

There was less to it than met the eye. The Russians have always been good at military theory. But their insights are not always translated into practice, because of political confusion, industrial weakness and deep-rooted corruption. Putin's new army suffers from many of the inherent weaknesses of the old: over-rigid commanders, ill-trained and demoralized soldiers, shaky logistics. It still lacks the means to fight a protracted war even on its own borders, let alone against NATO. Most western observers were nevertheless taken in. British and American intelligence may have predicted Russia's campaign in Ukraine. But they seem to have been as surprised as the rest of us by Russia's blundering incompetence and the nimble determination of the Ukrainians.

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