''Putin's Russia'' is a political commentary book by the Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaya about events and life in Russia under
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
.
Politkovskaya argues that Russia still has aspects of a
police state
A police state describes a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exec ...
or
mafia state
In politics, a mafia state is a Sovereign state, state system where the government is tied with organized crime to the degree when government officials, the police, and/or military became a part of the criminal enterprise. According to US diplom ...
, under the
leadership of Vladimir Putin. In a review, Angus Macqueen wrote:
[
Review.
]
Politkovskaya described an army in which conscripts are tortured and hired out as slaves. She described judges who are removed from their positions or brutally assaulted on the street for not following instructions "from above" to let criminals go. She describes particular areas in Russia dominated and operating under insensitive companies or cold
oligarchs that resemble brutal mafia bosses, with ex-military and special services personnel to aid them. She condemns routine kidnappings, murders, rape, and torture of people in
Chechnya
Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federa ...
by Russian military, exemplified by
Yuri Budanov. She mentions the decayed state and minimally financed conditions of the
Russian Pacific Fleet and nuclear arsenal in Vladivostok. She describes the persistence of the infamous
Moscow Serbsky Institute of psychiatry and Dr.
Tamara Pechernikova, who was notorious for torturing
Soviet dissidents in "
psikhushkas" of the 1960s and 1970s, often using drugs such as
haloperidol
Haloperidol, sold under the brand name Haldol among others, is a typical antipsychotic medication. Haloperidol is used in the treatment of schizophrenia, tics in Tourette syndrome, mania in bipolar disorder, delirium, agitation, acute psychos ...
. She tells the story of
Pavel Fedulev, a petty criminal who became "the leading industrialist and deputy of the legislature", as a prototype "
New Russian".
Politkovskaya accuses Vladimir Putin and
FSB of stifling all civil liberties and promoting corruption to further the establishment of an authoritarian regime, but tells that "it is we who are responsible for Putin's policies" in the conclusion:
See also
*
Putin. War
References
2004 non-fiction books
Books about post-Soviet Russia
Books about Vladimir Putin
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