Escape from Ukraine

March 2020: Escape From Ukraine is a timely reminder of aggression, Russia's undeclared wars, and a glimpse into the future of Russian neighbor states. The resolve of NATO, the European Union, and the United States may be tested as President Vladimir Putin attempts to expand his empire.

March 2022: How foreboding. Russia has ruthlessly invaded Ukraine: Moldova and the Baltic States may be next on Putin's menu. In a fertile but vulnerable borderland coveted by powerful empires, a young Ukrainian and his peasant family wanted nothing more than to tend their allotment. But geography placed them in the path of fanatical Communists, conquering Nazis, and the advancing Red Army. They had no choice but to flee west in 1944 to the safety of American forces, led by a German Wehrmacht deserter. Trapped behind the Iron Curtain, Lubos is a participant in the significant events of his era: the death of Stalin, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Prague Spring's rise and fall, the Velvet Revolution, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

During perilous times in the shadow of the USSR and then the Russian Federation, Lubos finds love and tragedy and the strength to guide his family. President Putin's 2014 invasion of Crimea is a personal threat. Seventy years after fleeing Ukraine, he must again escape to safety with his daughter and grandson.

Ward R. Anderson graduated with a B.A. in History from Bucknell University and promptly married Kathy, his college sweetheart. As a U.S. Navy carrier-based fighter/attack pilot, deployments to the Western Pacific and then along NATO borders of the Iron Curtain furthered his understanding of the vulnerability of countries adjacent to Russia. The 2014 invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea compelled him to write a novel that presents the excesses of Communist and Nazi regimes and the threat from a relentless Vladimir Putin. Anderson is an avid reader and researcher who has difficulty passing by a museum. A photographer, he is a former Director of the Maryland Federation of Art. He and Kathy race their sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay and cruise their powerboat, Skylark, to Maine and Canada.