Helion & Company- War in the Ukraine Vol 11: The Battle of Chernihiv, Feb-Mar 2022

First Impressions

This is a softcover book about 8.5in x 11in with 72 pages, 75 color pictures, maps and 21 color vehicle profiles.  This is mostly a historical book on a specific battle.  It's part 11 in a series of books on the Ukraine War covering a vast number of topics and even vehicles.  I found it to be particularly interesting considering this is still a current event conflict and not something written several years later.

The key thing here is it is not a “walk-around” book.  There are pictures of vehicles, and profiles that will give modelers some good inspiration, but it really is meant as a historical review of the battle, events, movements and leaders involved.

Contents

Opening it up to the table of contents we have 10 chapters. 

1-5: Opposing Forces, The Battlefield, Opening Moves, Assaults on Chernihiv, The Bypass Attempt

6-10: The Siege, Radioactive Vacation, Subversive & Guerrilla Operations, Russian Withdrawal, Consequences

Chapters 1-5

The first half of the book starts with a brief context to the whole Ukraine/Russian situation then moves to identify the major units involved on both sides. The Air and Ground forces are reviewed at a Battalion, Brigade and/or Division level.  Next is a brief review of the region, aka the battlefield then quickly into the opening moves by both sides in preparation for the 24 February 2002 start of the conflict.

The assaults section has several personal first-hand quotes from people impacted in the attacks and gives a realistic and bleak view of a modern war in a developed country.   Most of the section reads like a high level Action Report regarding unit movements, battle contact, and vehicles knocked out and or captured.  Some casualty reports are discussed as well.   The 5th chapter is split with seven pages of color profiles of Russian vehicles used in the conflict on both sides, the history of the region, and the layout of the land. 

Chapters 6-10

Here the story becomes more personal.  The Siege begins with the summaries of random Russian shelling and clear “fire and forget” tactics without even verifying military targets- IMHO.  Some photos clearly illustrate the randomness of these efforts.  The author goes on to briefly talk about shooting down one Russian Su-34 over the city which is also nicely illustrated in the color profiles. 

Chapter 7 hits on the defense/capture of the Chernobyl NPP or better known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.   Yes, this is the infamous Russian catastrophe from 1986.   Up until the war there was a rather larger Ukrainian National Guard presence surrounding the region to protect people from themselves and from disturbing the ground on the most radioactive surface area on the planet.  The Russians managed to capture this area and set up a base for several thousand troops in the zone.  “...nearly everything – including vehicles and equipment, but especially troops – was contaminated with radioactive substances."  This activity was later abandoned in late March of 2022 after only occupying the area for about a month.   You can only imagine in 10 years, how many hundreds of Russian men, that managed to survive the war, mysteriously have cancer and will be dying at an early age of 30 something.

Chapter 8. Subversive and guerrilla operations began to take hold of the region In late March. This chapter talks about many of the local groups. specifically, civilians carrying out and or partnering with Ukrainian special forces to destroy the logistic movements of the Russian invasion. Specifically focusing on fuel and supply vehicles to limit the Russian ability to move logistics to the front lines or in retreating movements.

Chapter 9 talks about the Russian withdrawal and how they went about moving troops out of the area. Essentially, from my perspective and how I read this, they just hit reverse and backed out of the same roads they came in on.  Naturally, the Ukrainian forces did their best to eliminate the returning forces.

The final chapter is, I think, just gut wrenching.  We all know what war can bring to a civilization, but in the current age, reading about what happened just a couple years ago so indiscriminately, especially upon civilians, was unconscionable. Some specific quotes from Ukrainian civilians talks about the torture and the treatment the Russians freely took out out the local people.  In many cases, military personnel or civilians even suspected of being military personnel, were executed.

Conclusion

This is a really good book and documentary on a specific event in time.  A sad situation and well documented with a good combination of all aspects; units, maps, vehicles, stories, and battles.  A well balanced read of the situation and also very eye opening of which I did not expect and or even know about.    I hope they continue making more books in this series and format.  I really enjoyed reading this volume and frankly learned a lot.  I highly recommend you pick up this book.  I think you will be very pleased.

Highly Recommended for modelers and historians.

Thanks goes out to Casemate Publishing for this publication review.

Reviewed by Ashley Abernathy

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