How KGB took back Russia and took on the West

Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West by Catherine Belton, who was a correspondent with the Financial Times in Moscow, tells a dramatic, high-stakes story of what Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Russia truly means. When the Soviet Union fell, communism collapsed but the deep security state simply bided its time. Post-Boris Yeltsin, the deep state’s siloviki (men of force) networks not only filled their own pockets and expropriated Russia’s resources, but always also aimed to destabilise Western institutions. Belton casts a sinister light on Putin’s journey, from his stint in East Germany in the late 80s, liaising between the KGB and the Stasi, to being deputy to the St Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, to his using organised crime and barter deals to provide cover to foreign slush funds of KGB.Untitled Carousel 89969462 After his boss lost an election, Putin headed to Moscow, rising rapidly in the Kremlin hierarchy, promoted by Yeltsin’s family and crony oligarchs. He was seen as a low-key, effective and loyal resource. But KGB saw post-USSR Russia’s new tycoons, created from scratch to corner the gains of privatisation, as a threat, as a Western operation to weaken Russia. By 1998, amid rouble devaluation and economic bust, a defensive Yeltsin had to give concessions to KGB forces. His family trusted Putin as a successor to protect their interests, and Putin played all sides. Rivals were eliminated through surveillance and kompromat tapes, some died mysteriously. The faceless bureaucrat became a national hero through media coverage of his military operations against Chechen attackers, a Russian James Bond who vowed to wipe out terrorists and bandits, a salve for Russian pride. Putin’s model was that of a strong state as guarantor of order and driver of change, he disdained democracy and promoted a shady capitalism that infiltrated the world. Market and media freedoms were repressed, courts were curbed, parliament became a rubber stamp, and oligarchs who fancied themselves owners rather than holders were brought to heel, most dramatically Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. KGB men took back the commanding heights of the economy, and a new cast of oligarchs emerged in strategic sectors, all with ties to Putin. They also poured into foreign capitals, taking over London, buying newspapers and football clubs, targeting or taking over key British politicians with their black cash and influence networks. Autocracy, territory and church are the three key elements of Putin’s philosophy, the book claims. Former Soviet republics are essential to his mission, especially Ukraine which he sees as Russia’s phantom limb. Despite the seeming rapprochement with the West in the Bush years, Putin has seen Nato expansion as betrayal and humiliation, seeing their actions in Georgia and Ukraine as a way of rubbing Western dominance in Russia’s face. The invasion of Crimea restored Putin’s national approval, and his foreign policy exploits place him above his rivals in Russian eyes, and the web of compromise and criminality means that the deep state cannot afford to lose him either. But, Belton says, the system is not sustainable – there is infighting among the siloviki, and the slowdown from Western sanctions leads to an even more bitter struggle over resources. What the future holds for Russia is unclear after its current invasion of Ukraine, but what this book shows is that KGB had never gone anywhere, that both the free market and democracy were mere mirages.Read alsoWorking out why we should work outWhy this author calls India, US & Brazil 'anocracy'Globalisation increases war, reduces conflict