Putin's Sledgehammer

Putin's Sledgehammer
Author: Candace Rondeaux
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2025-05-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1541703081

The astonishing inside story of the Wagner Group, the world’s deadliest militia. In June 2023, the Wagner Group assembled an armed convoy that included tanks and rocket launchers and set out on what seemed like a journey to take control of Moscow. The last person to attempt such a venture was Adolf Hitler. Wagner’s power began from patronage, then grew from international theft and extortion, until it was so great it exposed the weakness of Russia’s conventional military and became a threat to the Russian state, one that was not demonstrably eliminated until a private jet containing Wagner’s core commanders was blown up in midair. That Yevgeny Prigozhin, a local criminal thug, was able to build a private army that was on the threshold of overwhelming the world’s second largest country seems incredible. In fact, it was inevitable following the hollowing out of the Russian military, the creeping use of contract groups for murky foreign missions, power struggles inside the Kremlin, and the ability of the new militias to corner and exploit the black economy. Told with unique inside sourcing and expertise, Putin’s Sledgehammer is a gripping and terrifying account of a superpower that contracted its soul to a pitiless militia.

Modern Russian Cinema as a Battleground in Russia's Information War

Modern Russian Cinema as a Battleground in Russia's Information War
Author: Alexander Rojavin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2024-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 104010259X

This book explores how modern Russian cinema is part of the international information war that has unfolded across a variety of battlefields, including social media, online news, and television. It outlines how Russian cinema has been instrumentalized, both by the Kremlin's allies and its detractors, to convey salient political and cultural messages, often in subtle ways, thereby becoming a tool for both critiquing and serving domestic and foreign policy objectives, shaping national identity, and determining cultural memory. It explains how regulations, legislation, and funding mechanisms have rendered contemporary cinema both an essential weapon for the Kremlin and a means for more independent figures to publicly frame official government policy. In addition, the book employs formal cinematic analysis to highlight the dominant themes and narratives in modern Russian films of a variety of genres, situating them in Russia’s broader rhetorical ecosystem and explaining how they serve the objectives of the Kremlin or its opponents.

Putin's Kleptocracy

Putin's Kleptocracy
Author: Karen Dawisha
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2014-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476795215

The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia. Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin’s kleptocratic regime. She presents extensive new evidence about the Putin circle’s use of public positions for personal gain even before Putin became president in 2000. She documents the establishment of Bank Rossiya, now sanctioned by the US; the rise of the Ozero cooperative, founded by Putin and others who are now subject to visa bans and asset freezes; the links between Putin, Petromed, and “Putin’s Palace” near Sochi; and the role of security officials from Putin’s KGB days in Leningrad and Dresden, many of whom have maintained their contacts with Russian organized crime. Putin’s Kleptocracy is the result of years of research into the KGB and the various Russian crime syndicates. Dawisha’s sources include Stasi archives; Russian insiders; investigative journalists in the US, Britain, Germany, Finland, France, and Italy; and Western officials who served in Moscow. Russian journalists wrote part of this story when the Russian media was still free. “Many of them died for this story, and their work has largely been scrubbed from the Internet, and even from Russian libraries,” Dawisha says. “But some of that work remains.”

Buda's Wagon

Buda's Wagon
Author: Mike Davis
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2017-01-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1784786659

The brilliant and disturbing 100-year history of modern terrorism and car bombs—the ubiquitous weapon of urban mass destruction On a September day in 1920, an angry Italian anarchist named Mario Buda exploded a horse-drawn wagon filled with dynamite and iron scrap near New York’s Wall Street, killing 40 people. Since Buda’s prototype the car bomb has evolved into a “poor man’s air force,” a generic weapon of mass destruction that now craters cities from Bombay to Oklahoma City. In this provocative history, Mike Davis traces the its worldwide use and development, in the process exposing the role of state intelligence agencies—particularly those of the United States, Israel, India, and Pakistan—in globalizing urban terrorist techniques. Davis argues that it is the incessant impact of car bombs, rather than the more apocalyptic threats of nuclear or bio-terrorism, that is changing cities and urban lifestyles, as privileged centers of power increasingly surround themselves with “rings of steel” against a weapon that nevertheless seems impossible to defeat.

Putin's Labyrinth

Putin's Labyrinth
Author: Steve LeVine
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2009-04-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812978412

“A riveting look at today’s Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.”—The Kingston Observer In Putin’s Labyrinth, acclaimed journalist Steve LeVine, who lived in and reported from the former Soviet Union for more than a decade, provides a gripping account of modern Russia. In a penetrating narrative that recounts the lives and deaths of six Russians, LeVine portrays the growth of a “culture of death”—from targeted assassinations of the state’s enemies to the Kremlin’s indifference when innocent hostages are slaughtered. Interviews with eyewitnesses and the families and friends of these victims reveal how Russians manage to negotiate their way around the ever-present danger of violence and the emotional toll that this lethal maze is exacting on ordinary people. The result is a fresh way of assessing the forces that are driving this major new confrontation with the West.

Putin's Prisoner

Putin's Prisoner
Author: Aiden Aslin
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2023-07-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1529916895

Brought to you by Penguin. Aiden Aslin joined the Ukrainian marines in 2018, compelled to defend his adopted homeland from the growing threat of Russian invasion. In February 2022, as Russia mounted a full-scale offensive, Aiden and his unit were stationed at the frontline at Mariupol. Pinned down at a Mariupol steelworks, after a month-long siege and running out of supplies, Aiden was part of the mass surrender of over a thousand Ukrainian troops, in April 2022. Then his real ordeal began. Singled out for his British passport, Aiden was interrogated, tortured, stabbed, turned into a propaganda zombie, tried by a kangaroo court and then sentenced to death. A victim of a catalogue of abuses of international law, Aiden struggled to cling on to any hope of survival. Certain that he was going to be executed, he was eventually freed in a prisoner exchange and permitted to return home. In Putin's Prisoner, Aiden will tell the full, harrowing story of his time fighting in Putin's war, of his six months in Russian captivity, and of his hardened resolve to defend the freedoms of the people of Ukraine. ©2023 Aiden Aslin & John Sweeney (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Putin's Assassin

Putin's Assassin
Author: Victor Malarek
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2024-07-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1038313961

New York Tribune investigative reporter Matt Kozar is compelled to head to Ukraine, the homeland of his great-grandparents, after hearing an impassioned speech by high-ranking US senator William Bradford denouncing Vladimir Putin’s murderous invasion. On a trek to a front line, Kozar witnesses firsthand the shocking and unimaginable war crime atrocities committed by Russian soldiers. With his horrifying accounts splashed across the front page of the Tribune, the reporter returns to New York to be hit by news that the senator has been arrested and charged in the brutal murder of his intern. In this fast-paced political thriller, Kozar and his forensics expert girlfriend, Mei, get caught up in a seemingly impossible investigation of Senator Bradford’s wildly unbelievable claim that he was framed by the Kremlin. The reporter hits one dead end after another while locking horns with Bradford’s attorney and a Washington, DC, homicide captain. Putin’s Assassin is the second book in the Matt Kozar series and follows Wheat$haft by Victor Malarek.

Putin's War on Ukraine

Putin's War on Ukraine
Author: Samuel Ramani
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2023-04-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1805260030

Eight years after annexing Crimea, Russia embarked on a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Vladimir Putin viewed this attack on a neighbour as a legacy-defining mission, which sought to restore a central element of Russia’s sphere of influence and undo Ukraine’s surprisingly resilient democratic experiment. These aspirations were swiftly eviscerated, as the conflict degenerated into a bloody war of attrition and the Russian economy crumbled under the weight of sanctions. This book argues that Putin’s desire to unite Russians around a common set of principles and consolidate his personal brand of authoritarianism prompted him to pursue a policy of global counter-revolution; it was this which inspired Russia’s military interventions in Crimea, Donbas and Syria, later steering Putin to war against Kyiv. Samuel Ramani explores why Putin opted for all-out regime change in Ukraine, rather than a smaller-scale intervention in Donbas, and considers the impact on his own regime’s legitimacy. This focus on the domestic drivers of invasion contrasts with alternative theories that highlight systemic factors, such as preventing NATO expansion. Ramani concludes by assessing the invasion’s implications for Russia’s long-term political and foreign policy trajectory, and how the international response to the conflict will reshape the global order.

Gillian Douglas: Sledgehammer

Gillian Douglas: Sledgehammer
Author: Robert Grant Wealleans
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2018-11-16
Genre:
ISBN: 0359229921

Gillian Douglas & Lorraine king return from their Mediterranean operation with a gangster's yacht as a prize & a strange and wonderful new friend from a far-away world. The President appoints the deadly duo as U.S. Marshals & grants them nationwide jurisdiction and authority over all federal, state, & local police while in pursuit of domestic terrorists seduced into jihad by overseas terrorists. While they thermonuclear blond sets up the Domestic Anti-Terrorism Unit, Detective Salvatore Biasi asks for her help on a twenty-year old cold case that hints of a horrific serial killer and multiple victims. As Jill & Lorraine hunt killers, they uncover a monstrous plot of revenge to destroy the new Trade Center. There is action & suspense aplenty while the presence of their new friend, Cecily Valence & her purpose is revealed & why she has journeyed so far to be with her beloved Jill & to bear witness to her heroic deeds.

Putin's Wars

Putin's Wars
Author: Mark Galeotti
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2022-11-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472847539

The Financial Times – Best books of 2022: Politics 'The prolific military chronicler and analyst Mark Galeotti has produced exactly the right book at the right time.' The Times A new history of how Putin and his conflicts have inexorably reshaped Russia, including his devastating invasion of Ukraine. Putin's Wars is a timely overview of the conflicts in which Russia has been involved since Vladimir Putin became prime minister and then president of Russia, from the First Chechen War to the two military incursions into Georgia, the annexation of Crimea and the eventual invasion of Ukraine itself. But it also looks more broadly at Putin's recreation of Russian military power and its expansion to include a range of new capabilities, from mercenaries to operatives in a relentless information war against Western powers. This is an engrossing strategic overview of the Russian military and the successes and failures on the battlefield. Thanks to Dr Galeotti's wide-ranging contacts throughout Russia, it is also peppered with anecdotes of military life, personal snapshots of conflicts, and an extraordinary collection of first-hand accounts from serving and retired Russian officers. Russia continues to dominate the news cycle throughout the Western world. There is no better time to understand how and why Putin has involved his armed forces in a variety of conflicts for over two decades.