Sakwa is Emeritus Professor of Russian and European politics at the
University of Kent. From 2001 to 2007 he was also the head of the University's Politics and International Relations department. He has published on Soviet, Russian and post-communist affairs, and has written and edited several books and articles on the subject.[2][3]
His book Frontline Ukraine is about the origins of the
Russo-Ukrainian War. It argues that the conflicts in the
post-Soviet space are caused by the expansionism of western/
Atlanticist "Wider Europe" and the
revanchist aggression of Eastern European states, with the USA and
NATO sparking a
new Cold War. The book cautions against European security becoming "hostage to a faraway country", Ukraine. Sakwa argues that it is "wrong-headed in conceptualization and dangerous in its consequences" to describe Russia as expansionist: "Russia under Putin is not a land-grabbing state, it is a profoundly conservative power and its actions are designed to maintain the status quo... [Russia] makes no claim to revise the existing international order, but to make it more inclusive and universal." Sakwa argues that
Russia's wars with
Georgia are defensive wars against NATO expansionism.[7]
His 2021 book Deception argues that investigations into
Russiagate – allegations that
Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 U.S. presidential election – were politically biased and based on unverified documents. He said the investigations polarised the U.S. and politicised the intelligence community, which greatly damaged the country and soured
U.S.–Russia relations.[8]
Reception
Sakwa's 2015 book Frontline Ukraine was well-received by
University of Ottawa historian
Paul Robinson in E-International Relations[9] and political scientist
Serhiy Kudelia in
openDemocracy.[10]Taras Kuzio criticised Sakwa for what he saw as pro-Russian bias and lack of expertise on Ukraine,[11] and has described him as a "pro-Putin scholar".[12] Sarah Lain of the
Royal United Services Institute describes Sakwa as essentially providing the Russian perspective on the Ukraine conflict.[13] A review in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies describes Frontline Ukraine as "openly polemical" and a "one-sided treatment of contemporary Russian politics and of Putin’s regime".[7]Paul D'Anieri describes it as "a polemical attack on Western policy... and a defense of Russia... Sakwa clearly sympathizes with Russia's position."[14]
Maria Lipman, a Russian journalist, political scientist and Russia expert, wrote in Foreign Affairs that Sakwa's 2021 book Deception "is an exceptionally detailed and well-documented account of all the major episodes covered by the Trump-Russia probes".[8]
Published works
Books
Sakwa, Richard (3 October 2023). The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War. New Haven London: Yale University Press.
ISBN978-0-300-25501-0.
Sakwa, Richard (15 January 2022). Deception: Russiagate and the New Cold War.
ISBN978-1-7936-4495-4.
Sakwa, Richard (6 February 2020). The Putin Paradox. I.B. Tauris.
ISBN978-1-78831-830-3.
Sakwa, Richard; Hale, Henry E.; White, Stephen (27 November 2018). Developments in Russian Politics 9. London: Red Globe Press.
ISBN978-1-352-00467-0.
Sakwa, Richard (12 October 2017). Russia Against the Rest. Cambridge, United Kingdom New York, NY, USA Port Melbourne, VIC, Australia New Delhi, India Singapore: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN978-1-316-61351-1.
Sakwa, Richard (2015). Frontline Ukraine: crisis in the borderlands. London: Tauris.
ISBN978-1-78453-064-8.
Sakwa, Richard (16 December 2010). The Crisis of Russian Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN978-0-521-14522-0.
Sakwa, Richard (11 August 2010). Communism in Russia. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York, NY: Red Globe Press.
ISBN978-0-333-60679-7.
Russian edition: Коммунизм в России: интерпретирующее эссе. — М.:
РОССПЭН, 2011. — 160 с. — (История сталинизма). —
ISBN978-5-8243-1596-7.
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, in the Routledge Sources in History series, General Editor: David Welch, Professor of Modern History, UKC (London, Routledge, 1999), pp.xxi + 521. [ISBN (hbk) 0-415-12289; (pbk) 0-415-12290-2] A book of annotated documents charting the political and moral trajectory of communism in the USSR.
Postcommunism, in the series Concepts in the Social Sciences, General Editor Frank Parkin (Buckingham and Philadelphia,
Open University Press, 1999), pp. 144. [
ISBN0-335-20058-3 (hbk);
ISBN0-335-20057-5 (pbk)] Translated into Portuguese as O Pós-comunismo (Lisbon,
Instituto Piaget, 2001), pp. 203.
ISBN972-771-443-9. Spanish translation went to press in September 2004.
Soviet Politics in Perspective, Second fully reworked edition of Soviet Politics: An Introduction (London, Routledge, October 1998), pp. xiii + 355. [
ISBN0-415-16992-5 (hbk);
ISBN0-415-07153-4 (pbk)]
Gorbachev and His Reforms, 198590 (London, Philip Allan/
Simon and Schuster, October 1990; Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, February 1991), pp. xiv + 459. [0-86003-423-2 (hbk); 0-86003-723-1 (pbk)]
Soviet Politics: An Introduction (London and New York, Routledge, June 1989), pp. xvi + 356. [
ISBN0-415-00505-1 (hbk);
ISBN0-415-00506-X (pbk)]
Soviet Communists in Power: A Study of Moscow During the Civil War, 1918–21 (London,
Macmillan, July 1988; New York,
St Martins, 1988), pp. xxii + 342. [0-333-39847-5]
^Robinson, Paul (20 May 2015).
"Review – Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands". Retrieved 28 April 2018. Some may find Sakwa's analysis one-sided. Russia's mistakes and misbehaviours are explained, while those of the West and Ukraine are condemned. Nevertheless, Sakwa supports his thesis with considerable evidence and lays out a powerful case... Frontline Ukraine brings much needed balance to a subject which badly needs it
^D'ANIERI, PAUL (8 June 2016). "Ukraine, Russia, and the West: The Battle over Blame". The Russian Review. 75 (3). Wiley: 498–503.
doi:
10.1111/russ.12087.
ISSN0036-0341.
^Rochlitz, Michael (2016). "Book Review: Richard Sakwa, Putin Redux: Power and Contradiction in Contemporary Russia". Political Studies Review. 14 (2): 298.
doi:
10.1177/1478929916630921l.
S2CID148402701.