Highly Recommended Book: Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West

5 out of 5 stars MASTERPIECE: A Staggering, Compelling BRILLIANT book that will stand the test of time.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Untitled-Camilla-Bartlett/dp/0374238715/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&ie=UTF8&keywords=putin%27s%20people&language=en_US&qid=1593832667&sr=8-1

I have read/listened to many books connected to the whole Trump/Russia saga. This book is on a category of its own. It's a very in-depth look at the development of Russia from the collapse of the USSR to the present and how the KGB and the Russian mob penetrated the government and turned Russia into a mafia state. The book describes and intertwines Putin's biography with the USSR's need to send money to the West and how that led to the development of complex money laundering networks that have bred characters like our own Donald J Trump. 

This book made me understand everything about how Putin's mindset works and how his contextual experience may have formed his views and led to the installation of his puppet president in the USA; how and why the mob and the KGB forced businessmen to work for them informally or die/ lose everything. It explains how Kompromat has fueled Russia's upper echelons and how they have now exported this model to the US.  Kompromat and money laundering bred the orange rat officially known as 'president'. 

The book is impeccably researched, written by a person who clearly speaks Russian. The author has lived there and has a very in-depth understanding of Russian culture AND the storytelling is just as fascinating as the factual information she has gathered.  It's a legit MASTERPIECE that explains what happened to Russia and how they applied their mafia-KGB-style method to the rest of the world.