Book of essays "In the face of disaster" , edited by Nikolai Plotnikov, Professor of Cultural and Intellectual History of Russia, Ruhr University (Bochum), German publishing house LIT Verlag , was one of the first attempts to give a philosophical definition of the situation of war and outline the boundaries of the related problem of guilt and responsibility. The war against Ukraine unleashed by the Putin regime brings death, destruction and suffering to the Ukrainian people. But this war also means for Russia a civilizational catastrophe. A group of sixteen Russian critical intellectuals (philosophers, sociologists, historians, cultural scientists) came together in this collection to publicly raise their free voice in Russian. The authors are located in Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. But they are united in their desire to present a critical analysis of the ongoing disaster. In their articles, they characterize this catastrophe from an ethical, sociological and anthropological point of view and devote themselves to considering the intellectual factors that made it possible.