Yaroslav Trofimov - "Our Enemies Will Vanish" - The Keller Center
The Pearson Institute will feature Yaroslav Trofimov, who will discuss his recent book, “Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence.” Trofimov traces the war’s decisive moments, from the battle for Kyiv to more recent developments, and discusses the importance of this moment in history.
At the Keller Center Sky Suite
About the Author: Yaroslav Trofimov is the author of three books of narrative non-fiction and one novel. He has worked around the world as a foreign correspondent of The Wall Street Journal since 1999, and has served as the newspaper’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent since 2018. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2023, for his work on Ukraine, and in 2022, for his work on Afghanistan, and won the National Press Club award for political analysis in 2024. His honors include an Overseas Press Club award for coverage of India as well as the Washington Institute gold medal for the best book on the Middle East. His latest non-fiction book, Our Enemies Will Vanish, was a finalist of the 2024 Orwell Prize and won the 2024 Peterson Literary Prize.
Yaroslav holds an MA from New York University. His work for The Wall Street Journal can be found here. He is represented by Elias Altman at Massie & McQuilkin literary agency in New York.
About the Book: Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yaroslav Trofimov has spent months on end at the heart of the conflict, very often on its front lines. In this authoritative account, he traces the war's decisive moments--from the battle for Kyiv to more recently the gruelling and bloody arm wrestle involving the Wagner group over Bakhmut--to show how Ukraine and its allies have turned the tide against Russia, one of the world's great military powers, in a modern-day battle of David and Goliath. Putin had intended to conquer and annex Ukraine with a vicious blitzkrieg, redrawing the map of Europe in a few short weeks with seismic geopolitical consequences. But in the face of this existential threat, the Ukrainian people fought back, turning what looked like certain defeat into a great moral victory, even as the territorial battle continues to seesaw to this day. This is the story of the epic bravery of the Ukrainian people--people Trofimov knows very well.
For Trofimov, this war is deeply personal. He grew up in Kyiv and his family has lived there for generations. With deep empathy and local understanding, Trofimov tells the story of how everyday Ukrainian citizens--doctors, computer programmers, businesspeople, and schoolteachers--risked their lives and lost loved ones. He blends their brave and tragic stories with expert military analysis, providing unique insight into the thinking of Ukrainian leadership and mapping out the decisive stages of what has become a perilous war for Ukraine, the Putin regime, and indeed, the world.
This brutal, catastrophic struggle is unfolding on another continent, but the United States and its NATO allies have become deeply implicated. As the war drags on, it threatens to engulf the world. We cannot look away. At once heart-breaking and inspiring, Our Enemies Will Vanish is a riveting, vivid, and first-hand account of the Ukrainian refusal to surrender. It is the story of ordinary people fighting not just for their homes and their families but for justice and democracy itself.
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist - Winner of the Peterson Literary Prize
"Our Enemies Will Vanish achieves the highest level of war reporting: a tough, detailed account that nevertheless reads like a great novel. One is reminded of Michael Herr's Dispatches . . . Frankly, it's what we have all aspired to. I did not really understand Ukraine until I read Trofimov's account." --Sebastian Junger
A revelatory eyewitness account of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and heroism of the Ukrainian people in their resistance by Yaroslav Trofimov, the Ukrainian chief foreign-affairs correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
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