The short period of time stretching from the dramatic Constitutional amendments of January 2020, to the war launched by Vladimir Putin against Ukraine in February, 2022, marks a sharp turning point in post-Soviet Russian history. The author explains how Russia got to that point of war. Although Putin, termed ‘eternal’ because of amendments that allow him to run for two more terms as president, is everywhere in it, the book is a study of Russia writ large. It features the political uproar over the Navalny phenomenon, the ravages of the pandemic, manifestations of climate change, and intensifying confrontations between Russia on one side, Ukraine, NATO and the US on the other. The book provides a who, what, where and when of the short but volatile period prior to the outbreak of war, and offers a tentative why it happened. Discussed, too, are the highs and lows of Putin’s popularity; the effectiveness, or not, of economic sanctions, and Moscow’s ‘pivot to the east’. Whereas Putin is a more obvious villain in the unhappy tale, the author makes it clear that Ukrainian and Western leaders are by no means blameless for this state of affairs.

The former Moscow bureau chief of London's The Guardian presents an in-depth history of the former Soviet Union from 1987 to today. Jonathan Steele draws on interviews with Gorbachev, senior members of the Yeltsin inner circle, and many other sources to highlight the difficulty of establishing democracy and a free market in Russia.

An electrifying and timely book, by leading Russian expert Richard Lourie, that explores Putin's failures and whether Trump's election gives Putin extraordinarily dangerous opportunities in our mad new world. "A master chronicler of modern Russia. Drawing on his own expertise, Lourie paints a convincing portrait of a ruthless authoritarian leader headed toward failure. This book serves as an essential primer on Putin and, by extension, Russia."—Publishers Weekly For reasons that are made clear in this book, Putin’s Russia will collapse just as Imperial Russia did in 1917 and as Soviet Russia did in 1991. The only questions are when, how violently, and with how much peril for the world. The U.S. election complicates everything, including: · Putin’s next land grab · Exploitations of the Arctic · Cyber-espionage · Putin and China ...and many more crucial topics. Putin: His Downfall and Russia's Coming Crash is an essential read for everybody bewildered and dismayed by the new world order.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of On Tyranny comes a stunning new chronicle of the rise of authoritarianism from Russia to Europe and America. “A brilliant analysis of our time.”—Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New Yorker With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy seemed final. Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. This faith was misplaced. Authoritarianism returned to Russia, as Vladimir Putin found fascist ideas that could be used to justify rule by the wealthy. In the 2010s, it has spread from east to west, aided by Russian warfare in Ukraine and cyberwar in Europe and the United States. Russia found allies among nationalists, oligarchs, and radicals everywhere, and its drive to dissolve Western institutions, states, and values found resonance within the West itself. The rise of populism, the British vote against the EU, and the election of Donald Trump were all Russian goals, but their achievement reveals the vulnerability of Western societies. In this forceful and unsparing work of contemporary history, based on vast research as well as personal reporting, Snyder goes beyond the headlines to expose the true nature of the threat to democracy and law. To understand the challenge is to see, and perhaps renew, the fundamental political virtues offered by tradition and demanded by the future. By revealing the stark choices before us--between equality or oligarchy, individuality or totality, truth and falsehood--Snyder restores our understanding of the basis of our way of life, offering a way forward in a time of terrible uncertainty.

From Moscow, the world looks different. It is through understanding how Russia sees the world—and its place in it—that the West can best meet the Russian challenge. Russia and the West are like neighbors who never seem able to understand each other. A major reason, this book argues, is that Western leaders tend to think that Russia should act as a “rational” Western nation—even though Russian leaders for centuries have thought and acted based on their country's much different history and traditions. Russia, through Western eyes, is unpredictable and irrational, when in fact its leaders from the czars to Putin almost always act in their own very predictable and rational ways. For Western leaders to try to engage with Russia without attempting to understand how Russians look at the world is a recipe for repeated disappointment and frequent crises. Keir Giles, a senior expert on Russia at Britain's prestigious Chatham House, describes how Russian leaders have used consistent doctrinal and strategic approaches to the rest of the world. These approaches may seem deeply alien in the West, but understanding them is essential for successful engagement with Moscow. Giles argues that understanding how Moscow's leaders think—not just Vladimir Putin but his predecessors and eventual successors—will help their counterparts in the West develop a less crisis-prone and more productive relationship with Russia.

This book studies Russian society, culture, and public opinion in terms of what ordinary Russians think about Russia independent of the authoritarian regime of President Vladimir Putin. This study uses Jason Vaughn’s research and work in Russia to build a new model of how to interpret the Russian political system.

An outspoken opponent of pro-Russian, authoritarian, and far-right streams in contemporary Czech society, Martin C. Putna received a great deal of media attention when he ironically dedicated the Czech edition of Russ–Ukraine–Russia to Miloš Zeman—the pro-Russian president of the Czech Republic. This sense of irony, combined with an extraordinary breadth of scholarly knowledge, infuses Putna’s book. Examining key points in Russian cultural and spiritual history, Russ–Ukraine–Russia is essential reading for those wishing to understand the current state of Russia and Ukraine—the so-called heir to an “alternative Russia.” Putna uses literary and artistic works to offer a rich analysis of Russia as a cultural and religious phenomenon: tracing its development from the arrival of the Greeks in prehistoric Crimea to its invasion by “little green men” in 2014; explaining the cultural importance in Russ of the Vikings as well as Pussy Riot; exploring central Russian figures from St. Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin. Unique in its postcolonial perspective, this is not merely a history of Russia or of Russian religion. This book presents Russia as a complex mesh of national, religious, and cultural (especially countercultural) traditions—with strong German, Mongol, Jewish, Catholic, Polish, and Lithuanian influences—a force responsible for creating what we identify as Eastern Europe.