All the Kremlin's men: inside the court of Vladimir Putin

Abstract

This fascinating book describes the establishment and consolidation of Russian President Vladimir Putin's leadership, through the prism of the members of his entourage. It covers the period from late 1999, when Putin was first appointed acting president of the Russian Federation, to the present day, by which time Putin has served two terms as president and one as prime minister and is approaching the end of his third presidential term. The author, Mikhail Zygar, was until 2015 editor-in-chief of Russia's only independent television station, TV Rain (Dozhd). His book is based on face-to-face interviews that he conducted over seven years with dozens of Kremlin insiders. While some interviewees are not identified for reasons of confidentiality, 60 per cent of them are named, and these include individuals with direct experience of the events being studied, such as Putin's first chief-of-staff Aleksandr Voloshin; long-time Putin friend and now exiled businessman Sergei Pugachev; and Kremlin spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky.