A recap/journalistic investigation of Russian politics and foreign policy post-Berlin Wall, more specifically of the last decade (2008–2018).

Major events are pieced together and explained: the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, the Russian bombing of Syria, transitions of power within Russia, the almost annual Russian protests since 2009, the RT news channel, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the 2016 Brexit referendum, and the 2016 U.S. election.

This is a follow-up to Snyder's previous book "On Tyranny". It focuses on two concepts that tie these involved countries together: the politics of inevitability, and the politics of eternity.

"In power, eternity politicians manufacture crisis and manipulate the resultant emotion. To distract from their inability or unwillingness to reform, eternity politicians instruct their citizens to experience elation and outrage at short intervals, drowning the future in the present."

"The Road to Unfreedom is the passage from politics of inevitability to the politics of eternity."

Russian/EU/US relations are covered linearly. Russian motivations are explained in depth: values, political maneuvers, foreign policy, even how their language limits political ideology. The parallels between Russia and the U.S. post-2016, made clear both in this book and On Tyranny, should be widely shared and discussed information.

"In the end though, freedom depends upon citizens who are able to make a distinction between what is true and what they want to hear. Authoritarianism arrives not because people say that they want it, but because they lose the ability to distinguish between facts and desires."