Chapter 5 is the first part of our analytic narrative. We describe equilibrium selection in the immediate aftermath of the Maidan events. The first theater was Crimea. The question was whether Russian-speaking elites in peripheral communities would accept the first storyline (“Dignity”) and remain loyal to the Ukrainian state, or accept the second storyline (“coup”) and opt for sedition. Elites in Crimea coordinated rapidly on sedition. The only militias in the streets were pro-Russia (though a brave pro-Ukraine demonstration by Crimean Tatars is described). Russian soldiers arrived to secure parliament. The Party of Regions networks served a coordinating function, repurposing state institutions to legitimize the Russian presence and ensuring institutional continuity. Crimeans voted, Russia claimed self-determination, and the government in Kyiv was checkmated. Coordinated sedition was a fait accompli.

Chapter 4 describes the Maidan events – the start of the war. Mass social mobilization began when the government rejected an EU trade agreement. It ended with a regime change. These protests marked the first time since independence that police used excessive force against protesters in a significant way. A radical subset of protesters then used violence strategically against the police. The Party of Regions imploded and power transferred to the opposition. This created a crisis of political legitimacy and two opposing narratives. In one narrative, the illegitimate police violence against protesters finished the regime (“Revolution of Dignity”). In the other, the street violence against the police created an illegitimate political outcome (“fascist coup”). Anti-Maidan protesters in the East formed militias, acting on the second narrative. The roots of Ukraine’s war – whatever one calls it – can thus be traced to Maidan.

Chapter 1 introduces the book’s argument. Naming Ukraine’s war is controversial. Russia quickly appropriated the term “civil war,” cynically in order to claim noninvolvement. This flies in the face of evidence. The social science literature on civil war violence and barriers to settlements may be analytically useful, however, for understanding why the conflict in Ukraine was so difficult to bring to resolution in the 2015–2022 period. This book explains that Russia, after seizing Crimea, was reacting to events it could not control and sent troops only to areas of Ukraine where it knew it would face little resistance (the Eastern Donbas). Kremlin decision-makers misunderstood the attachment of the Russian-speaking population to the Ukrainian state and also failed to anticipate how that their intervention would transform Ukraine into a more cohesively “Ukrainian” polity.

Chapter 6 is the second part of our analytic narrative. We describe coordination failure by Russian-speaking elites trying to decide whether or not they wanted to try to emulate Crimea. The chapter contrasts the orderly spectacle of irredentist annexation in Crimea with the chaotic “Russian Spring” across Eastern and Southern Ukraine. The existential question was whether the interstate border would change again. The Party of Regions had imploded, so there was no mechanism of transregional cooperation. Dozens of Russian-speaking communities each had to decide locally whether sedition or loyalty to Kyiv would prevail. Russia attempted, but failed, to use a television narrative to encourage established elites in the East to back secessionist uprisings. Sedition did not really get off the ground in most Russian-speaking communities, as pro-Ukraine militias became dominant in the streets. By early May, anti-Kyiv protests died down most everywhere – except in the Donbas.

Chapter 3 tests our theory against the historical record. It introduces readers to a few contentious episodes in recent Ukrainian history, focusing on three major crises between 1991 and 2014. Our analytic narrative emphasizes that Russian-speaking communities can embrace “the Russian narrative” at critical junctures theatrically, in order to maximize their bargaining leverage or demonstrate an ability to destabilize Ukrainian national politics, and then be bought off. In each of three case studies, we document Russian-speaking elites bargaining in strikingly similar ways: provoking crises at the center, knowing that Russias military casts a shadow over regional bargaining dynamics. The Party of Regions is described as a machine for aggregating preferences across multiple constituencies with a strong base in the Donbas – the primary driver of the controversial language law of 2012.

Chapter 7 is the third part of our analytic narrative. We describe the processes that collapsed social order in Eastern Donbas. New social actors emerged and new militias found themselves in control of the territory, organized voting exercises, and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the central government. Unrecognized republics (the DNR and LNR) emerged. As Ukrainian forces were regaining territories in August 2014, despite the Russian army shelling Ukrainian border troops and sending weapons, it was not obvious whether Russia would send troops to assist “their” insurgents. Prior to Russia’s military arrival, we describe how “tidal” political processes on the streets quickly hardened what were previously fluid identity choices. The street overwhelmed old institutions as it became obvious that coordination by elites was not emergent. The realization that no law enforcement body had the capability to actually make arrests emboldened some groups, and new local players dragged their communities into sustained sedition.

Chapter 2 presents a statement of the book’s theory. The geography and demography of the post-Soviet space suggests a strategic game with three actors, all second-guessing each others strategies: peripheral elites in Russian-speaking communities, “national” elites in the capital, and elites in the Kremlin. The output of bargaining processes is the distribution of symbolic cultural goods. The game is played in two stages. In the first, inside Russian-speaking communities, elites attempt to coordinate to threaten to secede, or not. In the second stage, bargaining takes place between the capital and the potentially seditious community. If bargaining breaks down, the Russian government might intervene. We outline the analytic narrative structure that organizes the remainder of the book. The theory is formalized in a mathematical appendix (Appendix A).

Chapter 8 concludes our analytic narrative. We describe the politically frozen, yet militarily hot conflict from 2015 until 2022. Russian military intervention in the Battles of Ilovaisk (end of summer 2014) and Debaltseve (February 2015) produced the Minsk Agreement, backed by France, Germany, and eventually the UN Security Council, whereby Russia sought to impose conditions on Ukraine over the status of the disputed Donbas territories and the sequence required for Ukraine to regain control of its borders. Kyiv rejected this interpretation of Minsk, resulting in a diplomatic stalemate. The stabilization of the de facto frontier in the East took on familiar characteristics of a frozen conflict. On its side of the line of control Ukraine became more Ukrainian in terms of national cohesion and language/memory policies. On the other side of the line, the DNR/LNR became more Russian. Consistent with our model predictions, the policy preferences of the Ukrainian West met less resistance. In the final part of the chapter, we describe Putin’s decision to abrogate the Minsk Process and initiate a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s account of the conflict is formalized in a mathematical appendix (Appendix B).