Throwing light on the Russian enigma
The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Centre of WWll’s Greatest Battle
Iain MacGregor (Constable, £25)
EVERYONE has heard of Stalingrad, possibly because of Sir Antony Beevor’s prize-winning book, but not everyone will know exactly where it is. Long renamed Volgograd, it is roughly 200 miles east of Luhansk in the Donbas. Few would have heard of Luhansk before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but more people could probably find it on a map now, the city that once bore the name of Soviet Russia’s most notorious leader. Such is the way of history and, indeed, of geography, a subject far more fluid (in terms of borders, at least) in Eastern Europe than in this country. If you want to understand the ghastliness of the war in the Donbas, it is best to start those 200 miles further east on the
