How Russia became what it is today – and what lies ahead for Russia and for us. A compelling, prescient portrait.
When Russia invaded Ukraine – if not before – people began to wonder how Russia came to be what it is today. Olaf Kühl, who served for many years as an advisor on Russian affairs to the Governing Mayor of Berlin, knows the country as few people do; he has travelled extensively in Russia over the course of several decades, as far as Siberia and the Far East, and has spent time outside Russia’s major cities. In this book, he shows how Russia has developed since the fall of the Soviet Union, and how more intelligent, independently minded individuals were gradually replaced by officials loyal to the regime before a mafia-esque secret service elite seized power. All of this is illustrated through the fates of the people Kühl writes about. They include a successful businessman who, having refused to be blackmailed by the secret service, was tortured and killed in prison, and a separatist leader who was involved in the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and has now adopted a confrontational approach to Putin. One thing is already clear: Russia’s populist, nationalist foreign policy will lead to major violent upheaval within the country itself, and perhaps even to its collapse – with dangerous consequences for Europe as well as Russia. A portrait of Russia that is as compelling as it is prescient.
