The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia. This item is unavailable.The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia

Russia under Vladimir Putin has proved a prickly partner for the West, a far cry from the democracy many hoped for when the Soviet Union collapsed. Angus Roxburgh charts the dramatic fight for Russia’s future under Vladimir Putin—how the former KGB man changed from reformer to autocrat, how he sought the West’s respect but earned its fear, how he cracked down on his rivals at home and burnished a flamboyant personality cult, one day saving snow leopards or horse-back riding bare-chested, the next tongue-lashing Western audiences. Drawing on dozens of exclusive interviews in Russia, where he worked for a time as a Kremlin insider advising Putin on press relations, as well as in the US and Europe, Roxburgh also argues that the West threw away chances to bring Russia in from the cold, by failing to understand its fears and aspirations following the collapse of communism. Fully updated following the 2012 presidential election, the new edition of this acclaimed book provides a unique and penetrating inside view of Putin’s Russia.

Angus Roxburgh is one of Britain’s most distinguished foreign correspondents. An author and renowned journalist, he was the Sunday Times Moscow correspondent in the 1980s until he was expelled from the Soviet Union in a tit-for-tat espionage row. He returned in the 1990s and was the BBC’s Moscow correspondent during the Yeltsin years. Subsequently, he worked as an advisor and speechwriter for Putin’s communications team, a role which gave him unrivalled access to the Kremlin’s inner circle. He is the author of The Second Russian Revolution and Pravda: Inside the Soviet News Machine.