The New Total War From Child Abduction to Cyber Attacks and Drones to Disinformation – Russia’s Conflict with Ukraine and the West
By Bob Seely
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.
Reviews
“Bob Seely, with his unique blend of experience as a journalist, soldier and MP, delivers a sharp, insightful look at the Kremlin’s approach to warfare. In the age of Russia’s shadow war against the West, this is a must-read.”
Andrei Soldatov, exiled Russian security services expert and author of Our Dear Friends in Moscow
“This is no dry academic tome – on page one you find Seely in a deadly position as he is hunted by a Russian drone in eastern Ukraine. He explains through stories of real people how the Russian state has reinvented warfare for the twenty-first century, not by abandoning past doctrines but by fusing them into something far more dangerous, flexible and continuous: a new form of total war. In this book, Seely puts together his ideas gained through decades of experience, giving us the opportunity to understand the strategic drivers of the horrors on the ground and the future horrors that await us if we do not wake up to what is happening. If you ever wondered what was really going on with Putin’s Russia and its relations with Europe, you need to read Seely’s book – he completely nails it.”
Adam Holloway, former soldier, foreign correspondent and Member of Parliament
“Bob Seely has combined fine scholarship with journalistic skill and political analysis to provide a superb account of Putin’s war in Ukraine. It will be the go-to book for anyone who wants to understand the war’s genesis, Putin’s motives, the new dimensions of conflict that the war has originated and their dangerous implications for democracies now pitted against Putin. Seely’s book is not written from an ivory tower as a military handbook. It is a first-hand account, sometimes composed at a brisk pace while some of the 900 bombs Putin drops on Ukraine each month are literally raining down around him. There are also vivid descriptions from the front line, and these moving and powerful stories help us understand the courage and resilient stoicism of Ukrainians and that for them this is an existential struggle – a war for survival.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool, chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights
“A must-read book for policy-makers, especially in the defence and foreign affairs spheres. This thoughtful, clear-eyed and outspoken work proves how Putin’s Russia employs multi-frontal warfare in a way that we are likely to see more of in the coming years and explains why the war in Ukraine will be seen as one of history’s paradigm-shifting conflicts. If this important book is heeded, Bob Seely’s time on the ground in Ukraine will have been put to phenomenally good use.”
Andrew Roberts, co-author of Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza
“This book combines in-depth research on the history and philosophy of warfare with vivid, personal reporting from the front line in Ukraine and sobering strategic perspectives on security and defence in Ukraine, Europe and the United Kingdom. By confronting the reader with the realities of war, The New Total War leaves no room for denial.”
Nataliya Zubar, chair of the Maidan Monitoring Information Centre, Kharkiv, Ukraine
“Packed with insights personally drawn from the battlefields of Ukraine and ably weaving them together to demonstrate how Russia is blazing a trail in new ways of war, Seely’s book is an indispensable guide to conflict in the twenty-first century for the public and policy-makers alike.”
Professor Mark Galeotti, author of Forged in War: A Military History of Russia from its Beginnings to Today
“Piercing, unflinching and grounded in original Russian sources, this book lays bare the Kremlin’s doctrine of war as statecraft, revealing not just how Russia fights but how it thinks.”
Dr Jade McGlynn, post-doctoral fellow at King’s College London and author of Russia’s War and Memory Makers
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- Hardback, 432 pages
- ISBN: 9781785909481
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10 July 2025
Available to pre-order - £25.00
- eBook
- ISBN: 9781837360185
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10 July 2025
Available to pre-order - £19.99