Alexandru's Reviews > All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin

"Each of us invented our own Putin and we may yet create many more". This is the closing and arguably the most powerful quote of "All the Kremlin's Men" by the Russian political journalist Mikhail Zygar. I have read several books about Putin including "We Need to Talk About Putin" and "Putin's Wars" by the Russia specialist Mark Galeotti or "The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin" by Steven Lee Myers as well as several books written by local Romanian experts on Russia such as Armand Gosu. However, Zygar's work stands apart from all of these other works. It is probably the definitive, most complete, objective and interesting book about Vladimir Putin and the inner workings of the Russian political system.

Mikhail Zygar worked as journalist and war correspondent for the major Russian newspaper Kommersant and then founded his own independent TV channel in Russia. He is well know for his investigations in conflict zones as well as into the shady dealings of the Russian political class. During the Presidency of Dimitry Medvedev he was well known for the acid questions that he asked of the then President.

This book was written based on face to face interviews with Russian politicians from Putin's inner circle. It is a high achievement of journalism and has the great advantage of being written by a local Russian that understands the system. I actually read this book at the same time as Owen Matthews' book about the first year of the Russo-Ukrainian "Overreach" and noticed that Matthews quotes Zygar extensively.

Putin's style of ruling reminds a lot of Stalin, not in the murderous sense but rather in the way he uses his underlings against each other, letting them fight in order to see who wins and constantly shuffling people and cabinet positions to ensure that no one gains too much power.

The whole Russian political system operates similar to a mafia. There are several factions that are all loyal to Putin in some way but are vying for control and influence inside the system: the oligarchs, the siloviki (men from the security services), the reformers, the Chechens and so on. Many times men from these factions take actions of their own accord because they believe this is what Putin would want or that it would promote them in his eyes. If the actions succeed then the system can take credit for them, if they fail they can be easily discarded without being associated to the leader.

The book is split into four parts and each chapter is dedicated to one of Putin's henchmen.

The first part of the book deals with the rise of Vladimir Putin as a replacement for Boris Yeltsin. He was promoted by a group of oligarchs known as the family who had gotten rich from despoiling Russia in the 90s and needed their own man in charge. Chief among these oligarchs was the famous Boris Berezovsky. Putin was seen as a non-entity that could be controlled by these men. However, he eventually outsmarted the oligarchs and many of them ended up either dead, jailed or exiled once Putin was in power.

Initially, Putin's main rival was the nationalist Yevgeny Primakov, however Yeltsin outplayed Primakov by stepping down early and ensuring that Putin would be his successor. Eventually, Putin defeated the Communist Gennady Zyuganov and the Unity party merged with Primakov's All Fatherland party to form United Russia.

The second part deal with Putin in power in his first two terms, the initial good relations with the West, the relationship with George Bush and the war in Afghanistan but also the gradual cooling of the relations, the war in Iraq, the Orange revolution in Ukraine and finally the Georgian revolution.

The third part deals with the Presidency of Dimitry Medvedev, a man who started off as a reformer but quickly came back into line with Putin's vision and ending with the infamous invasion of Georgia.

The fourth and final part is aptly named 'Putin the terrible' as the massive protests against a third term convinced Putin that the West is sponsoring the Russian civil society against him. Gradually Putin decides to sideline his collaborators from his first terms and turned more to his trusted childhood and KGB/FSB friends.

This last part of the book deals with the politics of the Caucasus and Middle East. First, is Chechnya and its ruler Ramzan Kadyrov. The author explains how Kadyrov rose to power but then fell from grace when Chechen gunmen gunned down opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in front of the Kremlin. An internal war started between the interior ministry and the Chechens with actual gun fights and assassinations which threatened stability in the Caucasus. This was an example when two internal factions are loyal to Putin but hate and fight with each other.

Syria and the relationship between its dictator Bashar al-Assad and Putin closes this last section. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and status as international pariah was a great benefit for Assad who gained an ally in his war against the West and in the Syrian civil war. The Russian intervention in Syria directly helped Assad win the civil war but also almost triggered a war with Turkey.

The only sad part is that it was published in 2016 and was missing more recent developments. But that is now rectified as Mikhail Zygar has recently written a new book about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict titled "War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine". I will definitely be reading that book soon but at the moment I need a break from Russian history and politics.