Christopher Miller (13)

Christopher Miller first went to Ukraine as a Peace Corp volunteer in 2010, when he worked as a schoolteacher in Artemivsk (now called Bakhmut). Over his time there he slowly fell in love with the place. He has spent the bulk of his working career ever since in Ukraine. After leaving the Peace Corp he found work in Ukraine as a reporter and watched and reported as history unfolded around him.

At the time he joined the Peace Corp Miller had “decided to get lost for a while”. He had been show more working in Portland, Oregon as a local reporter. But news reporting was undergoing big changes in the US, and finding work was getting harder to do. While he was in Ukraine teaching with the Peace Corp the reporting bug never left him. He began to spend some of his non-teaching time with a group of Ukrainian investigative reporters.

After leaving the Peace Corp he got a job with the Kyiv Post, the first of many in-country reporting assignments. He has filed reports as a stringer for the New York Times, Washington Post, the Independent and other news organizations. For a while he was part of the staff reporting from Ukraine for Buzzfeed News. Now he works for the Financial Times.

Miller’s new book The War Came to Us, is both the story of his time in Ukraine, and an on the ground reporting of the events that have shaped Ukraine over the last decade. Miller was there, reporting from the Euromaidan in 2014 when the Ukranian revolution removed the corrupt Viktor Yanukovych from power. He was there when the “little green men” invaded and took over Crimea and much of the Donbas. He has been there for many of the major events that have made headline news around the world and continues reporting from Ukraine right up to today.

Miller’s love for the country and its people comes through clearly in this book. There are plenty of places you can go if you want to read about military strategies or political histories surrounding the relationship between Russia and Ukraine that have led to the current war. That is not what you get with this book.

Miller shows us lots of little moments that help to convey why he feels the way he does. Starting with his time in the country before the war, right up to and through the Russian invasion, his focus in relating stories to us is almost always on ordinary people - how events are impacting them, and how they are impacting events. It’s through their stories that you come to understand what’s going on in Ukraine and why it means so much.

If you are looking for an authoritative overview of the conflict in Ukraine, you could not ask for a better book. I highly recommend this one.

RATING: Five Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

NOTE: I read an advanced review copy of the book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher Bloomsbury USA. The book will be released to the public on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. show less

Christopher Miller's introduction to Ukraine was as a Peace Corp worker in the Donbas before the Euromaidan Revolution and after his Peace Corp stint, he stayed as a journalist. He is an American but his heart is Ukrainian. He gives western readers an up-close perspective of a wide range of life experiences in Ukraine, including life in the Donbas before and after the 2014 invasion and what's happening there now. He takes readers on a survey of contemporary Ukrainian life under the shadow of show more the genocidal dictator next door. This is an eye-witness history of Ukraine from the mid-2000s until now. A must-read for any westerner trying to understand what it means to be Ukrainian right now. show less

From Peace Corps volunteer to war correspondent, Miller gives us an efficient arc from the earliest days of the invasion going back to "little green men" and the bloodless annexation of Crimea through to the increased tensions and warfare in the Donbass - where desire for independence from Ukraine didn't necessarily mean a desire to be part of the Russian Mir. In the telling, Miller suggests the key prelude to the Minks Protocol of the Battle of Ilovaisk was a massacre of Ukrainian troops show more given safe passage where it is elsewhere reported that after days of encirclement, Ukrainian forces rejected the DPR's proposal to open a humanitarian corridor on the condition that they abandon their armored vehicles and ammunition, and on the morning of 29 August 2014 began a rash escape with their weapons.

Miller revisits places he knew first hand, as in Bakhmut, and follows up on the effects on the population of the Russian invasion, including reporting on atrocities from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) shot down by Russian-controlled forces to Bucha:

The horrors uncovered would make Bucha, once a quiet, leafy suburb, now synonymous with Russian barbarity. But they would also galvanize the international community into providing greater political and military support for Ukraine as it fought for survival.

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Thanks to the Peace Corps, our hero found himself in Ukraine. He was an American volunteer journalist.
You can also read the story of the Ukrainian journalist Oleksiy Vitalijowicz here. I was horrified reading about what happened to his flat. I secretly hoped that the perpetrators of the arson were severely punished. Did Oleksiy escape with his life? The author perfectly presents the sad history of Ukraine. The tragic moves of the authorities led to the death of many of their opponents. They show more lost their lives in unexplained circumstances.
Corruption, corruption and more corruption, this was happening under Yanukovych and his predecessors. Why did Yanukovych act against his citizens? A corrupt government does nothing to improve the lives of its citizens. It's just a scandal. There was no freedom of speech in Ukraine. Fraternizing with Russia has not been good for Ukraine. We see it perfectly nowadays.
Unfortunately, Putin did not give up so easily, he entered Ukraine and wreaked havoc. He tried to convince everyone that this was a "special operation", when in fact it was a dirty war. I secretly hope that Ukraine will win and those responsible for these shameful acts will be severely punished. They should be killed for crimes, rapes, thefts and bombings.
I am sorry that so many innocent people lost their lives. The world will never forgive the Russians for this. Putin, his oligarchs and supporters should suffer the same fate as their innocent victims.
It is a pity that the world is watching this and does nothing apart from humanitarian and military aid. As you can see, the sanctions imposed on Russia are not working. Unfortunately, it reminds me of World War II. Will anything change? Will there be world peace? Honestly? There will never be peace. A tragic and sad truth.
This report is worth reading.
In it you will learn the pure truth about Ukraine, its power and corruption. It's a shame that Russia meddles in the affairs of a country that is not its own. Putin had and still has a grudge against Ukraine that broke away from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He cannot accept the fact that Ukraine wants to be a member of the European Union. Why?
You should figure that out for yourself. Someone would lose too much here. As I read this report, I became more and more terrified. I couldn't stop crying.
It's not in my head. Should you be killed for telling the truth? As this book shows, the truth will kill you, not set you free.
Do you remember what happened in Maidan? If you don't remember, be sure to read this book. The author describes it perfectly here. Get your tissues ready and bring something to calm you down.
Volodymyr Zelensky was warned of Putin's armed attack on Ukraine. The CIA informed the Ukrainian president that the Kremlin had drawn up a list of people to be shot. At the very top was the president of Ukraine. Who else is on this list? After answering, I refer you to the book "The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine" by Christopher Miller.
Washington has been raising the alarm since March 2021. It was then that Russia began to arm itself intensively.
Why was Zelensky dissatisfied with the US, Canadian and British embassies?
Why didn't the Ukrainian president start arming himself when he was warned?
I liked Zelensky's speech, in which he spoke to the Russian people. But did they listen to him? Rather, they blindly believed their guru, Putin. They gave their own sons and fathers as cannon fodder. And what were they for? If they listened to the president of Ukraine, life would be more beautiful. Putin is a combination of Hitler and Stalin. Nothing good came of it. In this book, you will learn how Zelensky came to power. It was useful information.
Thank you to the author.
Putin is responsible for genocide. I hope he gets severe punishment for this. I learned the shocking story of Oksana and her family. Thanks to her, I was able to experience Russian propaganda. I wonder if Putin thinks the world is blind and can't see what he's doing? I really enjoyed this book because it is very emotional. My blood pressure went up many times.
Thanks to Christopher Miller for sharing his observations with us. He was an eyewitness to the invasion (war) of Russia into Ukraine. Thanks to what he saw, we can now know the complete truth about it.
Remember Ukraine was, is and will be.
Every state has the right to exist. The other state has no right to enter it militarily.
This is not a special operation, but pure war.

I read this book as an e-book. It is a pity that the author did not include a single photo in it. This is the only downside.
If you like reportage and war factual books, you should definitely read "The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine" by Christopher Miller.

I recommend. show less