When Vladimir Putin an unimportant low-level KGB operative was rushed to power by a group of Oligarchs in 1999 he was a man without a history Within a few brief years Putin had dismantled Russia's media wrested control & wealth from the country's burgeoning business class & decimated the fragile mechanisms of democracy Virtually every obstacle to his unbridled control was removed & every opposing voice silenced with political rivals & critics driven into exile or to the grave Drawing on information & sources no other writer has tapped Masha Gessen's fearless account charts Putin's rise from the boy who had scrapped his way through post-war Leningrad schoolyards to the 'faceless' man who manoeuvred his way into absolute
- & absolutely corrupt
- power