When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022 the writer Jana Bakunina who has lived
in the UK for 20 years felt furious ashamed but most of all helpless. A year later she
travelled to her home city of Yekaterinburg to see how ordinary Russians viewed the conflict -
and whether the soul of her nation had truly been crushed. Jana finds a booming city seemingly
untouched by war. Reconnecting with old friends she discovers people either happy to go along
with a regime that has brought them stability or else staying out of politics. Most painful of
all her once liberal father has channelled his personal disappointments into becoming a firm
fan of Putin. In the grand humane tradition of Russian dissident writers Jana Bakunina
grapples with a universal problem: what happens when a country you love becomes infected by
nationalism? What hope is there when voices of conscience are silenced by dictatorship? And can
Russians in exile still imagine a liberated future?
