The Russian Gladiator: A story about the Ukrainian War and what might happen after (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798283514840)

Lena, a kind-hearted young woman from the Moscow suburbs, falls in love with a military pilot-her happiness so unexpected, it feels unreal. But war soon intrudes on her life-not through headlines or official speeches, but as something no one dares to name and yet everyone begins to carry within. Quietly, insidiously, it changes people until they're unrecognizable.

Tender and loyal, Lena descends into a dystopia where AI-powered machines pose as friends, manipulate emotions, and then betray those who trust them. Grief is monetized. Loyalty becomes a weapon. The state reshapes citizens into soldiers, and children into instruments of power. But the monstrous system underestimates something profound: the human spirit. Lena's son, Sashka, learns to see through the lies-and dares to resist. And he is not alone.

The Russian Gladiator reads as if Orwell, Bulgakov, and Bradbury had come together to co-author a story about propaganda, the machinery of authoritarianism, and the struggle to reclaim one's true self. The result is a piercing, tragic, and quietly defiant novel-one that haunts and inspires in equal measure.