
Putin's People
How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West
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Narrated by:
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Dugald Bruce-Lockhart
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By:
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Catherine Belton
About this listen
"This riveting, immaculately researched book is arguably the best single volume written about Putin, the people around him and perhaps even about contemporary Russia itself in the past three decades." (Peter Frankopan, Financial Times)
Interference in American elections. The sponsorship of extremist politics in Europe. War in Ukraine. In recent years, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has waged a concerted campaign to expand its influence and undermine Western institutions. But how and why did all this come about, and who has orchestrated it?
In Putin’s People, the investigative journalist and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and the small group of KGB men surrounding him rose to power and looted their country. Delving deep into the workings of Putin’s Kremlin, Belton accesses key inside players to reveal how Putin replaced the freewheeling tycoons of the Yeltsin era with a new generation of loyal oligarchs, who in turn subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin's reach into the United States and Europe. The result is a chilling and revelatory exposé of the KGB’s revanche - a story that begins in the murk of the Soviet collapse, when networks of operatives were able to siphon billions of dollars out of state enterprises and move their spoils into the West. Putin and his allies subsequently completed the agenda, reasserting Russian power while taking control of the economy for themselves, suppressing independent voices, and launching covert influence operations abroad.
Ranging from Moscow and London to Switzerland and Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach - and assembling a colorful cast of characters to match - Putin’s People is the definitive account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world.
Financial Times Books of the Year - 2020
The Telegraph (UK) Best Books of the Year - 2020
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
©2020 Catherine Belton (P)2020 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
From the KGB to the Kremlin: a multidimensional portrait of the man at war with the West. Where do Vladimir Putin's ideas come from? How does he look at the outside world? What does he want, and how far is he willing to go? The great lesson of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was the danger of misreading the statements, actions, and intentions of the adversary. Today, Vladimir Putin has become the greatest challenge to European security and the global world order in decades.
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Not a good narration.
- By IBH on 07-22-20
By: Fiona Hill, and others
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In the Enemy's House
- The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies
- By: Howard Blum
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner discovered that the KGB was running an extensive network of strategically placed spies inside the United States, whose goal was to infiltrate American intelligence and steal the nation's military and atomic secrets. Over the course of the next decade, he and young FBI supervisor Bob Lamphere worked together on Venona, a top-secret mission to uncover the Soviet agents and protect the Holy Grail of Cold War espionage - the atomic bomb.
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Excellent non-fiction spy story
- By Katherine on 10-13-18
By: Howard Blum
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Overreach
- The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine
- By: Owen Matthews
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most serious geopolitical crisis since the Second World War—and yet at the heart of the conflict is a mystery. Vladimir Putin lurched from a calculating, subtle master of opportunity to a reckless gambler, putting his regime—and Russia itself—at risk of destruction. Why? Drawing on over 25 years’ experience working in Moscow, journalist Owen Matthews provides the answer. He takes us inside the COVID bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of nationalist fantasy and bad information.
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Comprehensive Account of the War Through September 2022
- By Jason777 on 12-30-22
By: Owen Matthews
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How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Fascism
- Canons
- By: Ece Temelkuran
- Narrated by: Ece Temelkuran
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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How to Lose a Country is a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don't march fully-formed into government; they creep. Weaving memoir, history and clear-sighted argument, Temelkuran proposes alternative answers to the pressing - and too often paralysing - political questions of our time. How to Lose A Country is an exploration of the insidious ideas at the core of these movements and an urgent, eloquent defence of democracy.
By: Ece Temelkuran
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Surviving Autocracy
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Masha Gessen
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In the run-up to the 2016 election, Masha Gessen stood out from other journalists for the ability to convey the ominous significance of Donald Trump's speech and behavior, unprecedented in a national candidate. Within 48 hours of Trump's victory, the essay "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" had gone viral, and Gessen's coverage of Trump's norm-smashing presidency became essential reading for a citizenry struggling to wrap their heads around the unimaginable.
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Good But . . .
- By A reviewer on 06-02-20
By: Masha Gessen
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Putin and the Return of History
- How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War
- By: Martin Sixsmith, Daniel Sixsmith - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Vladimir Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad.
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The historical information.
- By Calvin R. Young on 08-25-24
By: Martin Sixsmith, and others
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The Story of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The Story of Russia is about how the Russians defined themselves―and repeatedly reinvented such definitions along the way. Moving from Russia’s agrarian beginnings in the first millennium to subsequent periods of monarchy, totalitarianism, and perestroika, all the way up to Vladimir Putin and his use of myths of Russian history to bolster his regime, celebrated historian Orlando Figes examines the ideas that have guided the country’s actions.
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Almost perfect…
- By Samantha Dispenzieri on 02-21-23
By: Orlando Figes
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Lenin's Tomb
- The Last Days of the Soviet Empire
- By: David Remnick
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 29 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.
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The moral complexity of a comic book
- By Tot on 02-22-19
By: David Remnick
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House of Trump, House of Putin
- The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia
- By: Craig Unger
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump’s inauguration as president of the US. That moment was the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than 20 years ago with the massive bailout of a string of Trump hotel and casino failures. This book confirms the most incredible American paranoias about Russian malevolence.
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Understanding Trump through his shady roots
- By Caty kindle 4 on 08-20-18
By: Craig Unger
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Forged in War
- A military history of Russia from its beginnings to today
- By: Mark Galeotti
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The national identity has been forged in the furnace of war. From the medieval kingdom of Rus battling against a Scandinavian princes and Mongol emperors, to its own empire-building conflicts in 19th-century Asia, to the formative wars of the 20th century which saw Russia pitch from Tsarist empire to communist state and defender against Nazism, all these conflicts stained the lands of Russia red with blood. A weak post-Cold War Russia then turned to Putin, who created a new mood for martial triumphalism which led directly to the Ukrainian war.
By: Mark Galeotti
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Putin's Kleptocracy
- Who Owns Russia?
- By: Karen Dawisha
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia.
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Who owns Russia
- By Amazon Customer on 11-09-14
By: Karen Dawisha
Connects dots.
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Well researched, well written, startling story
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Critical given recent events.
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Very good
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Must read to understand current Ukraine crisis
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other than luberal bias toward trump, this book is near perfect. mafia rules over russia
very good
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This is great insight into Putin, but also into understanding the very convincing positioning of perception that Russia (and, of course, all powerful nations) have engaged in when it comes into portraying themselves to their own people.
Brilliant, clear, highly informative
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solid overview of why russia is the way it is.
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Important to understand thecurrent geopolitical situation vis-a-vis Russia.
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why he is doing what he is doing, and why he can't put on the breaks
understand putin
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