Most Americans know the war in Ukraine from only one side of the trenches, with news and images coming largely from reporters operating alongside Ukrainian forces. Italian-Swiss journalist Luca Steinmann instead observed the conflict from the opposite perspective. The Russian Front – published in English by Washington-based publisher Academica Press – is his account of seven months spent among Russian and pro-Russian soldiers in the Donbas, from the period preceding the invasion until the end of 2022. Originally published in Italy in 2023 under the title Il fronte russo. La guerra in Ucraina raccontata dall'inviato tra i soldati di Putin (published by Rizzoli), the book was written in Italian by Steinmann in early 2023, just a few weeks after his return from the front line. The English edition includes a new concluding chapter, dated July 2026, which brings the account up to the present day. Steinmann’s story begins with a phone call. In January 2022, Sasha – a Russian war correspondent he had met during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – warns him to get ready: something is happening in the Donbas. At the time, he recalls, US and British intelligence were warning of an imminent invasion, while many Italian commentators dismissed it all as exaggeration, and the author himself admits to having been among the skeptics at that point. On February 18, 2022, together with photojournalist Gabriele Micalizzi, he crosses the border into separatist-controlled territory with the intention of staying for about ten days. He would end up spending almost a year.

The book is structured into short chapters, many of them vivid and some heartbreaking. It recounts the siege of Mariupol and the Azovstal iron and steel works, Chechen units – portrayed both in prayer and in combat – and the city of Popasna, by then in ruins (described as "the Dresden of the Donbas"). It covers a visit inside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, moments spent at the front line with the Wagner Group, and the Russian retreat from Kherson. Among the most disturbing pages are those describing daily life under occupation: families moving into homes abandoned by those who fled, and the systematic "Russification" of the conquered cities. An Italian thread runs throughout the entire work. As the author writes, he and Micalizzi were the only Italian journalists present in the Donbas at the outbreak of the conflict. Micalizzi had arrived in Ukraine for the first time with the goal of bringing home the body of his closest friend, photographer Andy Rocchelli, killed near Sloviansk in 2014 (a chapter is dedicated to him). Another chapter, titled "Italians Fighting for Putin," profiles around thirty of our compatriots living between Donetsk and Luhansk. But the United States is also a constant presence. The pro-Russian officials who expel Steinmann from the occupied territories accuse him of being an "American propagandist." One of the final chapters, titled "Struck by HIMARS," takes its name from the US-supplied missile system that shifted the dynamics of the conflict in 2022. For American readers, observing Washington's weaponry through the eyes of the soldiers targeted by it offers an unusual as well as important perspective. Steinmann is well aware that his stance might draw criticism and, in fact, expects it from both sides: from the Russians, who would have preferred a propaganda-style narrative, and from Westerners, who would have hoped for a more "Atlantist" account. His response, he writes, is to stick to what he witnessed. It is up to the readers to judge the result.