This is the kind of book where I had to ask myself several times, what am I reading? Coming from this part of Europe I thought I knew about Russia, turns out I still had some naivety to tear down.
Snyder traces the path from the ideas of Ivan Ilyin, largely forgotten fascist philosopher, through Putin's Russia and the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, all the way to the attempts to undermine Europe and America.
It does explain some things, pieces of the news I only saw in isolation suddenly fit together. But it doesn't make it any easier to believe. Still mind-blowing that all of this is real and happened in plain sight.
What stuck with me is that the goal isn't to make you believe the lie. It's to make you stop believing anything at all. Coming from an ex-communist country that's not really news, just a sad reality and warning about things to come.