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megan_prairierose's review against another edition
4.0
Oh no. This is scary. How do you deal with a kamikaze dictator? I think we're all in a lot of trouble.
alwaysli's review against another edition
2.0
Chapter 5 and overall depiction of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is extremely tone deaf and incorrect. how can you write a book on russia being a terrorist state yet use their propaganda in your story is beyond me
therightprofile's review against another edition
4.0
A thorough overview of the Putin administration's rise to power, from the end of the Soviet era, the wars and the many terrorist acts claiming the lives of its citizens. Satter, having lived and worked in Russia himself, instead of being an outside observer posits credible evidence that the various tragedies were, at best, questionable, at worst originated by the Russian authorities themselves to remain in power. Further research is needed but this is an excellent starting point.
gothicgunslinger's review against another edition
5.0
This book is aptly named. A crash course history on Russia's post-Soviet era, much of it containing assertions so shocking to the Western conscience that I found myself often checking end notes and following up with Google searches so I could find the source material. But they were sound, and David Satter himself is no slouch – with four decades as a Russian correspondent, he conducted some of the most hair-raising research firsthand. And I've seen glimmers of the thesis he puts forth in my own research, but he puts it all together and lays it out in a straightforward, deeply disturbing sequence of events.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of the allegations put forth by Satter is that some of them, particularly the terrorist attacks as provocations or at the very least sanctioned by the government, are impossible to definitively prove. As such, they come across as conspiracy-minded, as other reviewers have noted. However, considering there are no official reports with evidence presented by the Russian government, circumstantial evidence, as Satter himself states, is all one has to go by. Satter's tone, although sober, is never inflammatory, and he provides examples and cited sources. This puts even the most unlikely scenarios firmly in the realm of possible, if not probable. The Russian state has long made a practice of obfuscating truth to keep a hold on power, and one only has to turn on the news in 2017 to see how Putin has exported these same tactics.
Anyone who wants to know what's going on in present day Russia – and how it might relate to the current American predicament – should give this a read... and prepare yourself for some sleepless nights.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of the allegations put forth by Satter is that some of them, particularly the terrorist attacks as provocations or at the very least sanctioned by the government, are impossible to definitively prove. As such, they come across as conspiracy-minded, as other reviewers have noted. However, considering there are no official reports with evidence presented by the Russian government, circumstantial evidence, as Satter himself states, is all one has to go by. Satter's tone, although sober, is never inflammatory, and he provides examples and cited sources. This puts even the most unlikely scenarios firmly in the realm of possible, if not probable. The Russian state has long made a practice of obfuscating truth to keep a hold on power, and one only has to turn on the news in 2017 to see how Putin has exported these same tactics.
Anyone who wants to know what's going on in present day Russia – and how it might relate to the current American predicament – should give this a read... and prepare yourself for some sleepless nights.
veefuller's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.5
#myyearinbooks2022 has shifted slightly and slowed way down in the last few weeks. Like much of the world and Europe specifically, I'm simply trying to make sense of events which seem insane and utterly senseless.
This #book, which I learned about through an episode of @thisamerlife on #putin, ties together events from my first weeks in #Moscow in autumn 1999 to events in #Ukraine today, although I'm not sure #davidsatter expected {gestures at everything}.
In September 1999, a series of apartment building bombings in Moscow and other cities, killing more than 300 people, were used to justify a second and far more deadly war with #Chechnya. Grozny was quite literally destroyed with little regard for any human life in the city and barely a building left unscathed. Rumours at the time swirled regarding the true identity of those who planted the bombs in those residential buildings, with serious speculation pointing towards Yeltsin's newly appointed prime minister, #vladimirputin. Putin went from an unknown oddity to a national hero through his surgical destruction of Chechnya, and has remained in power since. What's worse is he's never shown much regard for human life, other than his own, through various crises and tragedies, the worst of which occurred in #Beslan, leaving more than 100 school children dead primarily through his responses.
This book is disturbing for obvious and many reasons. And, incredibly relevant now. I'm left with the uneasy conclusion that a man capable of bombings its own citizens is very much capable of destroying a country, not out of any necessity, but simply because he can. For what? Power.