Putin's Russia

Putin's Russia

OCLC

56645857

Putin's Russia is a political commentary book by the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya about events and life in Russia under Vladimir Putin.^[1][2]

Politkovskaya argues that Russia still has aspects of a police state or mafia state, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. In a review, Angus Macqueen wrote:^[3]

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this collection is that it feels like a Soviet-era dissident's book. Her pieces have that slightly desperate pitch of someone who fears no one is listening - that her own people have given up and that the outside world does not want to hear, or worse, does not care.

Politkovskaya described an army in which conscripts are tortured and hired out as slaves. She described judges who are removed from their positions or brutally assaulted on the street for not following instructions "from above" to let criminals go. She describes particular areas in Russia dominated and operating under insensitive companies or cold

".

Politkovskaya accuses Vladimir Putin and

of stifling all civil liberties and promoting corruption to further the establishment of an authoritarian regime, but tells that "it is we who are responsible for Putin's policies" in the conclusion:

Society has shown limitless apathy... As the Chekists have become entrenched in power, we have let them see our fear, and thereby have only intensified their urge to treat us like cattle. The KGB respects only the strong. The weak it devours. We of all people ought to know that.

See also

• Putin. War

References