In the course of less than two years Putin rose from being an out-of-work deputy mayor, whose boss had just lost his bid for reelection in 1996, to the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the modern-day KGB. One year later, Putin was prime minister; six months after that he was president. Jobless to president in three and a half years. Karen Dawisha's Putin’s Kleptocracy brilliantly describes Putin's rapid rise to power, the cabal he brought with him, the oligarchs they have created, the billions they have looted, and Putin's ambition to restore Russia to greatness. She reveals a deeply corrupt country ruled by a thieving regime.Putin’s Kleptocracy is based on years of research into Russian politics, the KGB, and various thriving Russian crime syndicates. Dawisha's sources include Stasi archives; the observations of Russian insiders; investigative journalists in the US, Britain, Germany, Finland, France, and Italy; and Western officials who served in Moscow and St. Petersburg. 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. But some of that work remains."
