Today's Russo-Ukrainian War really started in 2013 with the Euromaidan uprising. Putin invaded the Crimean Peninsula shortly after a pro-EU government came to power in Kyiv, and Ukraine has been at war with Russia ever since. This game simulates a multi-layered conflict that takes place inside the halls of power in Kyiv, on the battlefield, at the ballot boxes of western democracies, and in cyberspace. This is the first major war that is shaped by technologies that did not exist thirty years ago: drones, social media, and hydraulic fracturing. You play Ukrainians that want a democratic, western oriented country, and their allies in western governments. Your goal is to keep as much Ukrainian territory under the control of a democratically elected Ukrainian government as possible.

This game lets you contemplate some interesting counterfactuals: what if a pro-Putin figure like Le Pen won France’s presidential election? What if a former TV star did not win the Ukrainian presidential election in 2019? What if an American former TV star won the 2020 US presidential election? What if hydraulic fracturing drilling technology did not allow Europe to replace Russian gas with American LNG? There are lots of ways to win this game, but there are also lots of ways to lose. Good luck!