The author was Financial Times journalist in Moscow from 2007-13 and gets 5 stars for 2 reasons: a). for the amount of detail she has put in and b). for still breathing. I treated it as i do for Tolstoy novels, ie. list the characters so that i don't lose the plot. It traces the development of Putin from small fry KGB spy to senior St. Petersburg official to President. Putin got involved with criminal gangs there which worked together with the ruling local government elite as a team. This gave them power and wealth. What he learnt there he used in Moscow when he joined up with Yeltsin and started his political rise. With Yeltsin's disaster of destroying the state through an alcoholic haze, a new breed of Russian tycoons took over. They bought the state's assets at knockdown prices and became billionaires overnight. These oligarchs virtually ran things for their own interests and funneled their money into the West especially USA, UK and Switzerland. The latter state keeps popping up in the book as it uses its unique position in the world and fills its boots. It operates under the radar as it did during the wars.
The KGB used to funnel funds all over the world to spread its influence from funding wars to bribing officials to become spies. When the USSR collapsed and that structure fell apart, the USA took full advantage and spread its power as the only superpower left via NATO as the Warsaw Pact vanished. The Russians being a very proud nation and losing their pre-eminence on the world stage were desperate for a strong leader and along comes Putin. (Is there a parallel i ask myself with Germany in the 30s). A major point she makes in the book is that when Gorby ended the Cold War the West let their guard down. She makes it very clear that it is now in Cold War Mark 2 under Putin and that Russia is winning. Putin aims to destroy the West's alliances and that Russia becomes a superpower again. She explains that Trump had a lot of contacts with Russia from 2001 and when he won the Presidency the Russian Parliament was delighted. They were proven correct as most of Trump's foreign policy ties in perfectly with Putin's aims.
When Putin came to power there was a royal battle with the oligarchs to become top dogs. The richest oligarch at that time was Khodorkovsky. Putin used him as a scapegoat by stitching him up via the legal system which was controlled by him. K. got 10 years in jail and the ECHR stated, "that the court violated K's human rights". This was letting the oligarchs know who was in charge and do what i say or finish up in jail. There is a lot of evidence that Abramovich is in his back pocket. He was told to buy Chelsea FC to enter the UK. This he did amongst many other things rather than have his empire taken off him by the state ie. Putin as happened to K. The author provides plenty of evidence showing that the oligarchs do as he tells them. Lots of money that they have is now used to fund and finance activities that was done previously by the Communist State Party. Thus the FSB now carries on the work that the KGB used to do. Russian oligarchs move into Chelsea, London and Brighton Beach, USA. The whole purpose is to destroy by being the enemy within. Reading the book, J Biden comes out of it very well due to his knowledge of how Putin operates. Putin operates through his people so has PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY, ie. you can't touch me. She shows that a lot of the Dirty Money is funneled into London and some of it to the Conservative Party. ie. illegal money mostly.
Another main point in the book is that Russia is now a criminal state. The murders carried out all over the world from Litvinenko in London to the slaughter of Chechens in the war that Russia carried out there. The legal system is totally under the control of Putin and the oligarchs too. Criminal gangs are used by Putin for what he sees are the benefit of the nation. He has broken and altered the constitution so that he keeps in power for as long as he wants. A lot of circumstantial evidence that Trump was financed by Dirty Russian money via Deutsche bank which suggests that he is compromised by Putin. In other words, Putin has so much power over Trump that he has to abide by what he wants. As Pelosi said " when it comes to you Donald, everything leads to Putin". The things he does certainly make it seem so. M Cohen and F Sater (Joe Pesci in the future film) were big friends for decades and the go-between for Trump and Putin. Putin uses and discards his people when he no longer needs them such as Sergei Pugachev and B Berezovsky, as does Trump eg. M Cohen and J Sessions.
Excellent read, very detailed, very brave. Hopefully Americans will read this book, ( those that are left after Trump's pathetic Covid-19 policy) and realize that the USA can't take another 4 years of Trump. If they want a leader who believes in Putin more than their Intelligence Agencies, then they need to get rid of them and reduce their taxes.
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