Very interesting book, it turned up on the Brookings Institution list of recommended books and I’d been reading aaalready because a friend recommended it,. 

Putin is such a mysterious guy but Hill shows the logic and background of his ways and ideas and methods. He’s complex and has many dimensions, several more apparent than others. 

*****
Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin
by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy – 2020
read by Ellen Archer – 17h 38m
rating:  9 / political biography
(both read and listen)
*****

The book is not written in chronological order but rather it’s developed by themes corresponding to aspects of Putin and then in Part II shows how those aspects influenced his methods decision making. In general it covers the period from the fall of the Soviet Empire  through the Sochi Olympics and then almost to today’s issues in the political realm. 

 Coming from a lower middle class family in which he was the only surviving child, he moved through school and the KGB to the top of Russian state using all he learned in each station to move him forward in the next. 

Scattered throughout, a lot of attention is given to Putin’s Millennium Message because it seems to lay out his basic ideology if he has one, or at least his thinking on many issues.  He’s never really strayed from the points and ideas he made there. 

This is a really good book if you’re interested.