Putin: The explosive and extraordinary new biography of Russia’s leader

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As terrifying as this incident must have been, in a way it pales by comparison with another moment in the book in which Browder recalls the 2018 Helsinki summit between Putin and Donald Trump. Out of the blue, Putin offered to swap some Russian intelligence agents for Browder, and in a joint press conference Trump said that he thought it was “an incredible offer”. She is uniquely equipped to accomplish this task. She was born in Eastern Europe, like myself, and so personally acquainted with the horrors of Fascism and totalitarianism. Her political and scholarly skills are admirably suited to offer an unparalleled fusion of deep historical insights and highly relevant political warnings. The book also looks at the history of Russia’s interventions in Chechnya, in which both sides have committed atrocities. Is this a conflict that is likely to raise its head again in the near future? The book’s strength is . . . its mapping of the wider intellectual climate in which Putinism has thrived. . . Eltchaninoff manages to sketch an evolution in Putin – or at least in Putin’s self-portrayal – from westward-looking moderniser to unapologetic conservative, a shift traced through the increasing presence of chauvinist, anti-western thinkers in his writings.’ — The Irish Times The rise of totalitarian ideologies and movements such as BLM, critical race theory, Antifa, and woke extremism on the left, and authoritarian quasi-fascist narratives on the right like QAnon, Proud Boys, Orban, Putin, Erdogan, and others represent equally serious challenges that transcend…

Shchekochikhin’s girlfriend Alyona Gromova recalled: “On the day he was taken to hospital, he felt very weak. After he had a shower, his hair was a mess. I went to stroke it and great handfuls of hair came out in my hand. The symptoms were confusing. First, it seemed like a cold but his face was very red, as if he had sunburn, then lumps of his skin started to flake off.” Here is the paradox: Putin is no philosopher-king, yet he overtly and repeatedly evokes a series of Russian thinkers and writers and expects his people to know them. In this thought-provoking book, Michel Eltchaninoff explores Putin’s philosophical pantheon and the ways he appropriates and sometimes simply misunderstands them, in pursuit of his political and ideological programme for Russia.’ — Mark Galeotti, author of The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia It’s true that once Putin decided to change his way of doing things – once he decided to centralise and to curtail the power of the oligarchs – the second oligarch he dealt with was Berezovsky, after [Vladimir] Gusinsky. Yes, he dealt with him very firmly.Your next choice in your list of books about Putin and his rule in Russia is about the auto industry.

You’ve written about the threat that the current Russian regime presents to Western interests, and argue that the West has been complacent in dealing with Russian espionage.I think it’s partly because they can. They don’t have a navy really, they don’t have an air force, they don’t even have a serious space programme compared to what the Soviet Union had, but they can still spy. Second, the leadership is addicted to information. It believes that there are conspiracies out there and with enough spying they will uncover them. So the paradox is that even when there’s no secret, Russian spies are tasked with trying to discover one, which leads to some tragicomic outcomes which I talk about in my book Deception. Putin subsequently invaded Georgia and hundreds more lives were lost. He helped Assad in Syria kill around half a million. In 2014, he invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine leading to 15,000 deaths. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine this February has added to the butcher’s bill: maybe 40,000 Russian soldiers, 15,000 Ukrainian troops and many thousands of Ukrainian civilians have died so far. Leaving aside Syria, the master of the Kremlin is directly responsible for the deaths of some 150,000 people. Uncovers a fascinating truth … The real interest in this book lies in its unstinting analysis of the ideological sources of Putin’s conservatism. … Notably rigorous [it is] a must-read for those wanting to understand the Russian leader’s ideological roots — disturbing and fascinating in equal measure.’ — Le Figaro In Killer in the Kremlin, award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes readers from the heart of Putin's Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine. This book is, first of all, a great account of trade unionism in the car industry, but it goes much deeper into why the labour movement has suffered under the dead weight of communism, and the inertia and fear it produced in a whole generation of Russian workers, even though it was supposed to be a workers’ paradise. The author was deported from the Soviet Union for trying to interview workers who participated in the workers’ uprising in Novocherkassk in 1963. He is the foremost expert on the Russian workers’ movement.

Well that segues nicely to your first book choice which talks about this question of Russia coming to terms with its past. Please tell us more about It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway.Despite the protests from sections from the middle class, Putin does retain quite a large degree of popularity. Even if he did rig the last election, nobody really doubts that he would have won it. You’ve chosen five books for us, all of which have been published relatively recently. Is there a single thread that ties your choices together?

Alyona went to say goodbye to her lover in the morgue. “It was a big place, a huge hall. There were bodies on slabs due to be buried the next day. I looked around. There were about 20 people but I couldn’t find Yuri. I went up to the supervisor and explained that I might be in the wrong place as I couldn’t find him. Through the corner of my eye I saw a dear old lady lying on a slab. The strangest thing, she reminded me of my grandma who passed away a long time ago. The curious resemblance of the two old ladies hit me. In my worst nightmares, I could never, ever have imagined that the dear old lady was in fact Yuri.” It’s what you might call a literary travelogue, although that sounds possibly a bit disparaging because she’s genuinely well-informed about Russia. When she goes to places she doesn’t have the ingenuous naivety of the travel writer. She hones in on what’s important and what really matters. It was a time of wild profiteering, as post-Soviet state assets were sold off on the cheap, and a venal oligarchy was created. Business feuds were regularly settled by bullets, and the life expectancy of bankers was radically shortened. When Putin came to power on New Year’s Eve 1999, promising to stamp out corruption, Browder was a relieved man.

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Film-maker Angus Macqueen has helped create a platform of award-winning documentaries, Russia On Film