If you are looking for a reasonably compact review of Russian history encompassing the last three decades of the twentieth century, Princeton University historian and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Stephen Kotkin’s book ARMAGEDDON AVERTED, THE SOVIET COLLAPSE 1970-2000 should be considered.  Published in 2008 it foresaw some of the problems we are experiencing today with Russia and looking back fourteen years later Kotkin would not be shocked by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.  Kotkin has written two volumes of his biographical trilogy of Joseph Stalin; STALIN: PARADOXES OF POWER, 1878-1928 and STALIN: WAITING FOR HITLER, 1929-1941, one of which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.  Kotkin is an exceptional historian blessed with a pleasing writing style and the ability to synthesize vast amounts of historical information and documentation that the general reader along with professional colleagues can admire and enjoy.  With the war raging in Ukraine, Kotkin provides insights into Putin’s thought process and the impact of the 1970-2000 period on the Russian autocrat that explains a great deal of his actions.

A key theme in Kotkin’s monograph is his stated purpose in authoring the book; try and explain why the Soviet elite destroyed its own system with an absence of an all-consuming conflagration.  Pursuing historical hindsight Kotkin points to the importance of the 1973 Arab oil embargo as a watershed event that helped nudge the Soviet system toward economic failure.  According to Kotkin the 1973-4 embargo led to the economic collapse of Soviet industry in the late 1970s.  For Moscow, the discovery of oil in western Siberia in the 1960s coincided in the 1973 rise in oil prices brought about by the embargo which saved the Soviet economy from disaster.  From 1973-1985 oil was responsible for 80% of Soviet hard currency, much of which went for weapons procurement to equalize its relationship to the United States.  Further, Russia needed the excess wealth to pay for the war in Afghanistan; assist Eastern European satellites by offsetting energy costs; and importing the necessary technology, pay elites among other expenses.  It appeared that Russia was in a period of prosperity, but Kotkin is correct in that it postponed the inevitable collapse of the Soviet system as its industrial infrastructure continued to deteriorate.

Kotkin’s concise and analytical narrative raises many interesting points among them that the Soviet Union tried to clone satellite regimes after World War II.  The problem was that Moscow presented itself as a role model at a time of the post-war capitalist boom in the west.  The discrepancies between the two systems were clear and Eastern Europe became a thorn in the side of the Soviets as 1953, 1956, 1968, and 1980 invasions and pressure can attest to.  Eastern Europe went from a supposed Soviet strength to a vulnerability as more and more western consumer goods and loans were used to mollify populations.  Further aggravating Moscow was the rise of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese economic expansion and the cost in playing a leading role in the Third World.

It is obvious that Soviet infrastructure was on the decline throughout the 1970s and it could not compete with western capitalism, but what pushed the Soviet system over the edge was the generational leadership shift of the 1980s as the gerontocracy of Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko passed on to be replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev and his ill-fated perestroika.  The rot within the Soviet leadership is undeniable and the new Soviet leader sought to save the system from itself as Kotkin argues, “what proved to be the [Communist] Party’s final mobilization, perestroika, was driven not by cold calculation about achieving an orderly retrenchment, but by the pursuit of a romantic dream,” which Gorbachev referred to as “humane socialism.”

Kotkin raises an important question.  Why did Gorbachev’s reform agenda fail so miserably?   The author points to a number of reasons that make a great deal of sense.  First, Gorbachev’s economic agenda went halfway toward achieving a market transformation, something that was doomed from the start.  Second, oil prices declined drastically in 1986 which devastated hard currency earnings curtailing the import of consumer goods and reducing the standard of living for Soviet citizens.  Third, by pursuing a halfway approach toward a market economy it fell even further behind the west.  Fourth, the disaster at Chernobyl showed the west that Gorbachev was no different than his predecessors, being ensconced in secrecy.  Fifth, with Glasnost the public was now aware of secrets buried for decades; murder, the gulag, elite corruption etc.  Sixth, 25% of the population was under 25 years of age and were not interested in reforming socialism – Glasnost afforded unprecedented access to “commercial culture and values of capitalism.”  Seventh, party officials had no idea how to address a public reconfigured as voters or how to deal with shortages of goods, pollution, deteriorating assembly lines etc.  Somehow the Communist Party was supposed to be both the instrument and the object of perestroika.  Eighth, later Gorbachev admitted he failed to create a program for the transformation of a unitary state into a federal state and crippled the centralized party machine.  Lastly, Russia’s 15 Union republics had clearly defined state borders and their own state institutions and they began to act as independent states which they eventually became.

To Gorbachev’s credit he kept the Soviet military out of the loop when it came to events in Eastern Europe and let events evolve.  Since the Soviet Union could no longer compete with the west he let the satellite states move on as they and most republics declared their independence.

Kotkin provides an in-depth analysis of the August 1991 putsch and the role of conservative elements, the military, and of course Boris Yeltsin.  What he describes has been repeated by many scholars, but what stands out is his analogy of the putsch, its leadership, and its result to George Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM.  His presentation is priceless!  The result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union did not bring on the onset of American type affluence combined with European style social welfare but a chaotic system by which inflation wiped out the pensions and savings of the Russian people and the squalid appropriation of state functions, property, and wealth by Soviet era elites.   In addition to Yeltsin’s cronies and KGB types particularly from Vladimir Putin’s St. Petersburg colleagues and organized crime raping the wealth both monetary and physical from the Russian people.

The 1990s was a disaster and Kotkin fills in the gaps as to what occurred. He carefully explores the machinations of officials, bankers, factory management, political elites, and others who accumulated enormous wealth during the decade.  These groups developed numerous schemes from privatizations, auctions, loans for shares, bankruptcy procedures for cut rate hostile takeovers of profitable assets, money laundering, capital flight to offshore accounts leaving nothing for investment as they absconded with the wealth of their country.  The bottom line for Kotkin was “How was the incoherent Russian state going to solve the country’s problems when the state was the main problem?”

The main criticisms of Kotkin’s work comes from historian Orlando Figes who writes in the January 20, 2002 ,New York Times Book Review; “This relates to a broader criticism of Kotkin’s work. ”Averting Armageddon” plays down the importance of two vital factors in the Soviet collapse. One is the role of ideology — or more specifically the way in which it lost all meaning to the apparatchiks who deserted Gorbachev in 1989-91. Gorbachev was the last of the believers in the Communist ideal — but his party comrades, for the most part, had long ceased to believe. Their ideology had become little more than an empty slogan, a means of entry to the special shops reserved for the Soviet elite. This fact is essential if we are to understand why so few Communists were prepared to fight for the Soviet regime. The August putsch of 1991 was doomed from the start by the inertia of the middle and the upper ranks of the party. The plotters’ leader, poor old Gennadi I. Yanayev, was aware of this when, his hands in an alcoholic tremble, he read out to the world’s press a declaration of emergency.

The other factor is human agency — or more specifically Gorbachev. He may have started out as a Communist reformer, but there must have been a moment (for he tells us there was one) when he realized the need to dismantle the regime without a violent backlash from the hard-liners. His political maneuverings were intended to avoid a civil war or a crackdown against Eastern Europe that might have led to a disastrous loss of life. He was a sort of political Columbus — setting out with high ideals to find one thing and achieving something better by discarding them. He is a hero of our times.”*

Despite these criticisms Kotkin has written a concise, readable and informative book striking a pleasing balance between tedious detail and sweeping generalizations.  He offers a practical, accessible, and informative account of the Soviet Union’s collapse and insights into the impact of Russian history and allows for greater understanding of ongoing events in the Ukraine.

*Orlando Figes. “Who Lost the Soviet Union?” New York Times, January 20, 2002.  Figes latest book THE STORY OF RUSSIA was published a few weeks ago.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 produced tremendous corruption, poverty,  lawlessness, food and other consumer goods shortages, among many other negative occurrences.  These aspects that are normally discussed when dealing with decade of the 1990s, however, there is another major circumstance that needs to be stressed, the loss of identity.  Former Soviet citizens and soldiers immediately lost their affiliation to the only country they had known and asked themselves, “who are they?”  Since 1991 people were required to reformat their view of national ideology, the geopolitical balance, and for over 250 million people their psychological makeup.  The result people was that were ripe for manipulation to fill the void of their loss of identity with the passing of the Soviet Union.  Shaun Walker’s book THE LONG HANGOVER: PUTIN’S NEW RUSSIA AND THE GHOSTS OF THE PAST explores how Vladimir Putin attempted to fill that void and “forge a new sense of nation and purpose in Russia.”

As the Moscow correspondent to the Guardian holding a command of the Russian language, Walker has the sources and language skills to present a concise and searing argument that will allow the reader to acquire a true understanding of the underpinnings of Putin’s propaganda when applied to the February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine.  Though written in 2018, the narrative presents a clear argument that is difficult to find fault with.  The focal point of Walker’s book centers around Putin’s strategy of turning the Russian people toward World War II, the Great Patriotic War as a means of reuniting the Russian people and gaining support for his imperial ambitions.  In order to accomplish this Putin, Walker argues, must eradicate certain historically factual events from the pre-war and war periods that do not reflect very highly on Joseph Stalin and the former Soviet Union.  The need to create “willful amnesia” among Stalin and Putin’s victims was required.  In Walker’s account the concept has been applied extensively and effectively.

Walker clearly describes the tableau of the 1990s concluding with Boris Yeltsin’s resignation in December 1999 and the failure of the “decade of democracy.”  As people lost their savings and pensions, dealt with the Chechen war and terrorism it created a yearning for stability and normalcy.  Despite the fact that oil prices increased in 2004 resulting in a promising standard of living in the major cities, the vast majority of people living in towns and the countryside across Russia’s Eurasian land mass, poverty, drugs, addiction, and disease remained pervasive.  Putin believed that the poverty and divisions were a symptom of a broader malaise.  For Putin, the health of the state was most important and if Russia’s station in the world could be regained, people’s well-being would automatically improve.  Putin was tapping into the long held Russian political creed that fetishized the strength of the state and sovereignty.

In all of Russian history there has been only one event that could catalyze Russian unity and create the foundation to bring the country together – the victory in World War II.  Walker concludes that “pride in the defeat of Nazism transcended political allegiance, generation, or economic status, and had been used by later Soviet leaders to cement the regime’s legitimacy.  Putin would once again draw on the war victory as the key to creating a consolidated, patriotic country.”

From the outset Putin had to deal with the “truths” about the pre-war and war periods unleashed by Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika.  With archives opened people began questioning certain events; i.e., the Nazi-Soviet Pact and its side agreements to seize half of Poland and other areas; Stalin’s purges of the 1930s which included the officer class reducing the effectiveness of the Soviet military at the outset of the war which led to disaster throughout 1941; admission to the Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish officers; and the massive deportations that took place in the east.  Nationalities like the Kalmyks, Chechens, Crimean Tatars, ethnic Germans and other smaller groups were deported to central Asia and Siberia.  This involved thousands of soldiers when the war was not going well, but it was a priority for Stalin.  If Putin’s narrative of the Great Patriotic War was to be accepted, many of Stalin’s actions and the plight of the deported nationalities had to remain unexplored and forgotten.

The rhetoric Walker describes reflects an amazing campaign of misinformation and warnings about what was to be believed and what was to be whitewashed.  Even the meaning of “Victory Day” was altered as “under Putin gradually but inexorably the day became less about remembering the war dead and honoring the survivors, and more about projecting the military might of contemporary Russia.  The message was one of unity, around the idea of a resurgent victorious nation,” especially after the successful invasion of Georgia in 2008.

In describing how this was achieved Walker travels throughout the Gulag and interviews survivors of the prison system and family members who know what happened to relatives.  Interviews and travel with people like Olga Gureyva who spent years in the island prison of Kolyma, arrested at 17, spent over a decade in captivity working in freezing tin mines; Petr Nechiporenko, a Professor at Kiev State University who fought for the Bolsheviks in the Civil War but was arrested and accused of being a fascist terrorist who was turned in by colleagues and killed; Eveniya Ginzburg, the Russian writer and Gulag chronicler is arrested and sent to prison as a supposed Nazi terrorist for over a decade, just scrape the surface of the thousands upon thousands imprisoned and died in the Gulag.  But people like Walker’s guide, Ivan Panikarov who built a museum in his own home describing the Gulag argued that Stalin’s crimes may have been necessary to industrialize and defeat the Nazis.  Many of the people who Walker interviewed wanted to forget the past and move on as it just hindered the development of a strong Russia.  Walker’s description of what they wanted to forget is in line with historians like Robert Conquest and Amy Knight, along with Russian writers Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vasily Grossman. 

Walker mentions an interesting point that although Nikita Khrushchev’s De Stalinization speech of February 1956 created hopes of a more liberal Russia, he focused on the crimes of the Communist Party, and the vast network of camps was never discussed publicly.  Walker also asks an important question; was everyone guilty in perpetuating the system?   He concludes that there “were many varying shades of guilt and innocence. But almost everyone was at least partially a victim, almost everyone was at least partially a perpetrator.”

Putin’s strategy helped create a feeling of victimhood and martyrdom which would be offset by his perception of a successful Winter Olympics at Sochi, coming to terms with the Chechens after two wars and numerous terrorist attacks, and the successful invasion of Georgia in 2008 when Ukrainian president Mikheil Saakashvili decided to join the European Union and turned down a trade arrangement with Moscow, and the annexation of Crimea in 2014.  Western media attacks assisted Putin in creating the narrative that the west wanted to blunt any attempt by Russia to return to greatness.  Putin turned loose his domestic media to carry his message and the FSB and company made sure that protest and the wrong mind set would not get out of control.

The latter half of the narrative focuses on the evolving conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014.  He zeroes in on Kyiv’s Euromaidan protests, the annexation of Crimea, and the eruption of further conflict in the industrial Donbass region.  The developing conflict between Ukrainian and Russian identity is presented within an excellent historical perspective and analysis.

If one examines Putin’s justification for invading the Ukraine on February 24^th of this year it is clear he is turning to the Great Patriotic War as he accused the Kyiv regime of being made up of Nazis that had to be rooted out, and Ukraine was not a country because it was part of Russia and wanted to be reunited with its countrymen.

Walker has written a well-researched, provocative, and insightful book whose arguments seem accurate.  He uses the voices of authentic everyday Russians to tell his story.  He is careful to avoid viewing the west as morally superior.  Further, he provides a clear picture of Putin’s mindset and how he recaptured the faith of the Russian people in the state as well as in his leadership.  In Putin’s mind he has created a mindset for a whole new generation of Russians who will continue to influence the collective Russian psyche long after Putin finally leaves the Kremlin.  In the final analysis it is clear that though Walker authored his book in 2018, he foresaw the events of 2022 which are playing out in front of our eyes.

If you are following the war in Ukraine you are constantly bombarded with news stories concerning sanctions against Russia and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s oligarchs.  Frozen bank accounts, offshore investigations, the seizure of yachts, homes, the inability to access money or transfer funds, in addition to the loss of real estate, a soccer team and who knows what else are daily headlines.  The target of these actions are men who Vladimir Putin made rich by fleecing Russian mineral wealth, real estate, communications networks, weapons manufacturing, banking, highjacking the legal system, and of course the Russian people.  These men, many of which are former KGB operatives along with Putin, looted their country siphoning off billions of dollars out of state enterprises and moving their wealth to the west forming a second wave of oligarchs replacing those who accumulated extreme wealth under Boris Yeltsin. 

The west’s rationale for sanctioning Putin’s oligarchs is clear – destroy their wealth and lifestyle and they would pressure Putin to end his “special military operation” in Ukraine.  It is clear that the strategy has failed to move Putin to change course as the genocide in Ukraine continues.  Many wonder who these oligarchs are, how did they acquire their wealth, and what is their relationship with the Russian President.  Catherine Belton, an award winning journalist whose specialty was investigative reporting on Moscow has written PUTIN’S PEOPLE: HOW THE KGB TOOK BACK RUSSIA AND THEN TOOK ON THE WEST, an exceptional expose based on years of her own reporting and contacts in Russia and the west.

As Daniel Beer writes in his May 26, 2020, article in The Guardian, Belton is a renowned business journalist who spent years covering Russia for the Financial Times, Belton follows the money. She has an unrivalled command of the labyrinthine history of share schemes, refinancing packages, mergers, shell companies, and offshore accounts that lay bare the stealthy capture of the post-Soviet economy and state institutions by a coterie of former KGB officers, or siloviki. Belton combines this financial history with testimony from a dazzling array of Kremlin insiders, diplomats, intelligence officers, prosecutors, mobsters and oligarchs. The result reads at times like a John le Carré novel.”**  Belton’s approach and final product will amaze the reader for its depth of analysis and the disturbing picture she creates.

(Vladimir Putin was appointed prime minister in August 1999 before taking over from Boris Yeltsin as president on 31 December)

Belton’s theme is clear and direct – Putin justifies bringing all levers of power including ending elections for governors, bringing the court system under the will of the Kremlin, taking over and reorienting the media towards the needs of the state, and destroying certain oligarchs and private companies in the name of stability, all to end the chaos of the 1990s that existed under Boris Yeltsin.  But, behind the patriotic fervor he encouraged a system whereby “Putin and the KGB ran the economy through a network of loyal allies now monopolized power and introduced a new system in which state positions were used  as vehicles for self-enrichment.  It was very different from the anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeois principles of the Soviet state they had once served.” 

The author dissects a number of important questions.  First, how did Vladimir Putin, a KGB operative in Dresden when the Berlin Wall collapsed end up the authoritarian presence in Moscow that exists today?  Second, who are the men who he manipulated allowing them to accumulate vast amounts of wealth and if they crossed him wound up in the Gulag?  Third, what mechanisms did Putin, and his coterie of sycophants employ to bring about the unequal and illegal distribution of wealth in Russia?  Fourth, why has the Russian leadership and their oligarchs been so successful in hiding their wealth in the west and penetrating the western political apparatus?  Lastly, what have been and are currently the implications for the system of “state capitalism,” or “state feudalism” that now exists in Russia?

As Belton methodically answers these questions she places events and actions in the context of Russian history and examines the different personalities and actions of Putin and his St. Petersburg KGB, and how they were able to overturn the corrupt oligarchical system which claimed to be mostly progressive under the reign of Boris Yeltsin.

The  key component to Belton’s narrative centers around Leningrad at the time the Soviet Union collapsed.  Leningrad, soon renamed St. Petersburg was the home a KGB faction which had a close relationship with the East German Stasi which was aware of the risks of a communist collapse and quietly launched “Operation Luch” to prepare for a potential regime change, particularly recruiting agents for a possible unification of Germany.  Putin, then stationed in Dresden was part of the process that smuggled millions of dollars out of East Germany to maintain their operations and create techniques that would become the model for Putin’s later Kleptocracy.

(Russia’s cabinet members observe a minute of silence in September 2004 after the Beslan school siege, in which militants killed more than 330 people)

Belton follows Putin’s biography pointing out the significant role played by Anatoly Sobchak, a key reformer on the Leningrad City Council who would be elected mayor, then enamored with Putin made him Deputy Mayor.  From this position Putin and his KGB compatriots had a base of power and the tools to implement their plan to replace Yeltsin’s oligarchs, men who took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union to line their own pockets and indirectly steal state assets.  Billions were siphoned from Soviet coffers – a process overseen by the KGB.  Front companies and banks were created to house this wealth and no matter what occurred, the 1991 coup, the raping of Russia under Yeltsin, the corruption of the Yeltsin family, and finally the choice by Yeltsin to first choose Putin as his Prime Minister, then resigning early so his protégé could be elected Prime Minister in his own right in 1999 – all linked to the KGB, men from the Soviet and post-Soviet period.

Belton’s detail is to be admired as she traces how Putin exercised power and destroyed men like Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was emblematic of former Komsomol officials who early on were cultivated by KGB progressives who would acquire enormous wealth under Yeltsin but would be destroyed by Putin.  The modus operandi to go after these oligarchs was charging them with personal and business tax evasion resulting in the seizure of their companies and dividing their assets between the St. Petersburg KGB types and organized crime who worked hand and glove with Putin in the past.  The agenda for Putin and these KGB loyalists was their belief that conflict with the west was not over with the collapse of the Soviet Union, so they created vehicles to funnel billions of dollars into the west to finance KGB intelligence operations against the United States and its allies.

(Talks resumed this month, five years after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a bid to end the fighting)

The privatization of state enterprises under Yeltsin using “loans for share,” and auction gimmicks quickly transformed ownership of the country’s wealth and created a class of oligarchs.  Men such as Khodorkovsky controlled Yukos Oil, Vladimir Potanin controlled Norlisk Nickel, Boris Berezovsky controlled Sibnet Oil to name a few who reaped the benefits of the new system that controlled over 50% of the country’s wealth, but once Putin arrived they had to kow tow to his whims and goals.  These men would become the target of the KGB who sought revenge because of their desire to control the country’s riches.  The St. Petersburg KGB forged relationships during the early 1990s through an elaborate system of barter and export deals that involved organized crime creating a model of how Putin’s Russia would be ruled in the 21^st century.

Belton outlines how Putin and his cronies were able to become President pointing to a number of issues that Russia faced in the late 1990s.  First, Yeltsin and his family were crooks.  Second, the war in Chechnya which Yeltsin unleashed and Putin would use to raise his popularity for the 2000 election.  Third, The economy was on a roller coaster where market reforms led to a lowering of the standard of living for the Russian people.  With fears of a coup, the Yeltsin family decided they needed a strong KGB type who they could rely on to protect them from prosecution – that man was Vladimir Putin.  Yeltsin would resign early to facilitate Putin’s popularity and election victory.

Belton excels in describing the machinations of how Putin was able to consolidate power including a discussion of domestic terrorism blamed on Chechen terrorists.  This tactic appealed to the Russian people, but there is a great deal of evidence that FSB agents were behind the attacks creating the climate for Putin to crack down and re invade Chechnya.

Once in power Belton delves into Putin’s goal of creating an authoritarian system that he would control with an iron fist and how he accumulated billions in personal wealth which necessitated his own oligarchical system whereby fronts were created to limit any trace of wealth back to him.  Foreign bank accounts, real estate, a domestic banking system symbolized by Rossiya Bank, state control of the energy sector, threats, violence were all tools that were employed.

(US intelligence services say that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election)

There were those in the west that hoped to work with Putin in the early 2000s, but the influence of the St. Petersburg security men outweighed all other considerations.  Their world view was steeped in the logic of the Cold war, an ideology that would mold Putin.  They sought to restore Russia’s might and saw the United States as the main obstacle to achieving this.  For them, the economy was to be harnessed as a weapon first to restore the power of the Russian state – and themselves as leaders of the KGB and then against the west.

What saved Putin and the Russian economy from the outset was the rapid increase in the price of oil.  The leading Russian oil company was Gazprom, and the St. Petersburg KGB soon took over decision making.  Putin’s goal was to use possible oil and natural gas shutdowns as a vehicle to be employed in foreign policy as he did to Ukraine in 2004 and is currently doing so to Poland and Bulgaria.  More and more Putin evolved into a Tsar and he and his men would build a Russian fortress, presenting the country as under siege from an external threat.

Belton is correct that the key turning point was the 2003 trial of Khodorkovsky, his imprisonment, and exile to the Gulag for nine years.  It opened the way for Putin’s KGB men to take control of the country’s economy and created a precedent for the country’s judiciary to be an extension of Putin’s “security men.”  It also sent a message to other oligarchs that if they did not cooperate with shielding Putin’s wealth, laundering his money and protecting his power they could be next. The west did not realize that it was the beginning of the state takeover of the entire legal and political system leading to the accumulation of wealth that would be turned against them.  Throughout the process the hypocrisy of the west is evident as Belton points out the role and desires of western energy companies wanting to get their piece of the action with the Yukos and later Gazprom sell offs.  Further western hypocrisy is evident with oligarch investments in western real estate and banking, in addition to the role played by western banks such as Deutsche Bank, the Bank of New York, Danske Bank and others. 

(Khodorkovsky gave the first news conference after his release in Berlin)

Belton is able to unravel a process explaining how billions of Russian state assets were spirited to offshore accounts outside Russia – in 2012 alone, $49 Billion disappeared overseas.  Much of the wealth was invested in real estate particularly in New York, Miami, and London.  To create a mirage of legitimacy Roman Abramovich, an oligarch with strong ties to Putin was able to purchase the Chelsea Soccer Club, and others  invested in large real estate holdings in the United Kingdom fostering the nickname Londongrad.***  According to Belton, by the mid-2000s the British LLP (Limited Liability Partnership) was created as the money launderer’s vehicle of choice.  London would gain the reputation “as the world’s laundromat, washing hundreds of billions of pounds of dirty cash every year.”  Soon an awareness developed as to  the inroads the oligarchs made in the west and how they used its institutions to protect Putin’s wealth and as well as their own.  Interestingly, Putin and his men correctly predicted that western greed would outweigh any sense of morality when it came to western businesses’ approach to investing in and with Russia.

Belton’s exploration of Putin’s ideology focuses on the role of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the writings of White Russians dating back to the Russian Revolution, and recreating Russia’s imperial past.  In a sense Putin sees himself as a Peter the Great figure whose country should create a Eurasian empire whose destiny  was to counter the west as Putin forged a new Russian identity based on its imperial past.  In addition, Putin and his KGB cohorts sought revenge for the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic chao of the 1990s, and the threat the west presented to their overall goals.

Ukraine plays a significant role in this process and from 2004 onward would become a training ground for Russia’s undermining western unity.  First, employing energy blackmail, “black cash,” then the outright invasion of Crimea took place in 2014 and the insurrection to create the Donetsk Republic.  The eastern industrial region of Ukraine would endure eight years of war conducted by Russian backed separatists until the recent invasion of the entire country.

From the outset the Kremlin took over control of the Russian media from the oligarchs and developed the message that Putin was as godlike as a Tsar and saved Russia from western encirclement.  As long as Russian incomes grew due to the increase in energy prices the masses did not worry about the increasing state corruption, the growing arbitrary power of the FSB, and the control of all businesses by law enforcement.  Putin and his minions could jail anyone they wanted as long as the emerging middle class was happy.

Belton explores how Putin, and his cronies employ “soft power” in a frightening chapter, “Soft Power in an Iron Fist.”  She describes how “black cash” was used in Eastern Ukraine, funding right wing parties in France, Italy, Hungary and elsewhere in Europe, and co opting western politicians such as Gerhard Schroeder former Chancellor of Germany, Jean-Marie Le Pen who lost the French presidential election last week, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and of course Donald Trump.  This strategy was in line with Putin’s goal of pushing a populist right wing agenda as a rebellion against the western liberal establishment which he views as a threat to his position as Tsar of all Russia’s.

Putin’s interference in western elections is well known as his support for the far right throughout Europe.  Former Kremlin insider Sergei Pugachev points out that Russia’s aggressive new tactics employing cyber, money though  out Europe to achieve his goals “is like a dirty atomic bomb.  In some ways it’s there, in some ways it’s not.  Nowadays it’s much harder to trace.”  PUTIN’S PEOPLE lay bare the challenge the west faces internally and now externally with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in addition to offering a remarkable explanation of how Putin’s feudalistic state came into being and how it is evolving.

For an up to date view of what these oligarchs actually believe see Catherine Belton; Greg Miller, “Cracks Emerge in Russian Elite as Tycoons Start to Bemoan Invasion,” Washington Post, April 29, 2022.

**Daniel Beer “Putin’s People by Catherine Belton review – A Groundbreaking Study that Follows the Money,” The Guardian, 6 May 2020.

***For a discussion of how the oligarchs took London see Patrick Radden Keefe, “Do Stay For Tea,” The New Yorker, March 28, 2022.