... or the adventures of a western political journalist in Putin`s Russia. ( )

I picked this books up at a bookshop as I have an interest in Russian history, both classical and more modern. I was intrigued by the spiel on the back which highlighted that Harding had been targeted by the FSB due to his articles about what is going on in Russia.

From the start some of the techniques used against Harding are straight out of Cold War folklore and it's pretty strange to think that they are still being used today. Harding is keen to point out that the aim of the FSB is not to remain hidden but to disrupt the life of those individuals being targeted. This ranges from the silly, like leaving the phone off the hook to the sinister, deleting a family picture being used as a wallpaper on a laptop. The fact that embassy staff were familiar with these tactics just goes to show how widespread it must be.

The book is very critical of the way Putin and other oligarchs now control Russia for huge financial gains. Vast areas of the country live in poverty and dissenters are swiftly dealt with. Although I have no reason to believe this is wrong I couldn't help but feel that this book is written from one point of view only. It isn't a neutral presentation of modern day Russia, it is written by someone who clearly has an axe to grind with Putin and his pals.

There is a lot of good information in the book and this means that I didn't find it a quick read. It's not a hard book to read and each chapter deals with a different topic. There are some really good topics about the death of Litvinenko and the military stand off in Georgia.

I couldn't help but think that Harding brought some of what happened to him on himself. He knew that he was baiting the Russian authorities and that they wouldn't take kindly to his articles. At the same time he is probably right in saying that a lot of foreign journalists in Russia toe the line so as not upset Putin and that they lack guts.

This was an interesting read. ( )

Scary stuff. Very scary stuff.

Harding was the recipient of a campaign of harassment from the FSB. His flat was continually broken into, and he was deported before being let back in.

Also an excellent piece of investigative journalism, looking at the horrific human rights abuses that the Russian government is carrying out ( )

A good read, not necessarily the most in depth or possibly balanced; as other reviews have pointed out: there is a very good case for foreign powers having sponsored the 'Orange revolution' and fellow Brits who follow such things will have winced slightly at the recent admission from a former Downing street official that "..The spy rock was embarrassing. They had us bang to rights" as a good example.

Of course none of the above could ever remotely justify the deaths of journalists and human rights activists that happen with painful regularity in Russia today, and the author does a a great job of drawing us into this chilling world without descending into anything remotely resembling melodrama.

It's easy sometimes to let the names of people killed in 'suspicious circumstances' in some far flung part of the globe, wash over you; just another victim or a statistic on a news report in a land so (hopefully) alien, that we can't really relate and you need one persons close viewpoint to give you a glimpse of what it must really be like to be there. ( )

A good read, not necessarily the most in depth or possibly balanced; as other reviews have pointed out: there is a very good case for foreign powers having sponsored the 'Orange revolution' and fellow Brits who follow such things will have winced slightly at the recent admission from a former Downing street official that "..The spy rock was embarrassing. They had us bang to rights" as a good example.

Of course none of the above could ever remotely justify the deaths of journalists and human rights activists that happen with painful regularity in Russia today, and the author does a a great job of drawing us into this chilling world without descending into anything remotely resembling melodrama.

It's easy sometimes to let the names of people killed in 'suspicious circumstances' in some far flung part of the globe, wash over you; just another victim or a statistic on a news report in a land so (hopefully) alien, that we can't really relate and you need one persons close viewpoint to give you a glimpse of what it must really be like to be there. ( )