The Temple of War: The People and Ideas That Made Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Possible

 Ilya Venyavkin is a historian and co-founder of the Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA), a project dedicated to preserving the legacy of Russian-language independent media.
In his new book, The Temple of War, Venyavkin traces the lives and intellectual trajectories of several influential public figures who played a key role in Russia's transformation from the fragile democracy of the early 1990s into the deeply militarized and chauvinistic autocracy of the early 2020s. Through their stories, the book examines the ideas, ambitions, and historical processes that helped make Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine possible.

Ilya Venyavkin. The Temple of War: The People and Ideas That Made Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Possible. — Riga: Meduza / StraightForward, 2025.
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