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    Putin's People by Catherine Belton Summary

    Putin's People
    Catherine Belton
    4.17 (9112 Reviews)
    PoliticsEconomicsHistory
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    Overview of Putin's People

    Putin's People reveals how the KGB reclaimed Russia and weaponized corruption against the West. Described as "reading like a John le Carre novel" by The Guardian, this Sunday Times bestseller exposes the shadowy networks behind Putin's $200B kleptocracy that's reshaping global politics.

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    Best quote from Putin's People

    “

    He would change his colours so fast you could never tell who he really was.

    ”
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    "Feels effortless compared to reading. I’ve finished 6 books this month already."

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    1.5K Ratings4.7
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    When the Spymaster Came Home

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    A grainy documentary from February 1992 shows Vladimir Putin, St. Petersburg's deputy mayor, projecting calm competence amid the chaos of post-Soviet collapse. He claimed to have resigned from the KGB. The paychecks, however, told a different story. This unassuming bureaucrat would become Russia's longest-serving leader since Stalin, transforming a fragile democracy into what observers now call a "mafia state." But here's what makes this story truly chilling: the takeover wasn't improvised. It was rehearsed. While the world celebrated the fall of communism, KGB networks had already stashed billions abroad, cultivated agent networks across Europe, and prepared contingency plans for the day the Soviet Union would collapse. They didn't mourn the USSR's death-they had been planning its resurrection under a new flag all along. Picture KGB officers frantically burning documents in Dresden as the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Putin and his colleagues worked day and night until their furnace burst, destroying contact lists and communications until nothing remained but ashes. Twelve truckloads of sensitive files were rushed to Moscow. Yet this desperate scramble masked a deeper truth: parts of the KGB had been preparing for regime collapse for years.

    2

    The Dresden Network and KGB Capitalism

    3

    The St. Petersburg Laboratory and the Ozero Brotherhood

    4

    The Meteoric Rise and Grand Deception

    5

    The Oil Wars and the Creation of the Obschak

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    Londongrad and the Western Infiltration

    7

    The Vicious Circle