The pure evil of Putin’s reign is laid out here in knowledgeable detail. Somehow, throughout history, it’s all happened before. Only the methods available have changed. There’s also the matter of the hangers on, these days referred to as oligarchs, who are totally dependent on the corruption and brutality of the current regime. They’re not much better. the Amnesty International prize for "Victims of the Torture Train," about human rights abuses in Chechnya. John Sweeney is a distinguished award winning investigative journalist, working in the past for many news outlets including BBC’s Panorama and Newsnight as well as Channel 4’s Dispatches. He has reported fearlessly from Chechnya and Ukraine and witnessed scenes that no-one should see.

Alyona went to say goodbye to her lover in the morgue. “It was a big place, a huge hall. There were bodies on slabs due to be buried the next day. I looked around. There were about 20 people but I couldn’t find Yuri. I went up to the supervisor and explained that I might be in the wrong place as I couldn’t find him. Through the corner of my eye I saw a dear old lady lying on a slab. The strangest thing, she reminded me of my grandma who passed away a long time ago. The curious resemblance of the two old ladies hit me. In my worst nightmares, I could never, ever have imagined that the dear old lady was in fact Yuri.” The second Chechen war was different. Putin, he writes, used the series of apartment bombings in Moscow as “a casus belli to prosecute the Second Chechen War in the autumn of 1999″ but he did not need to, as a casus belli already existed. A Saudi jihadist leader known as Khattab, incorrectly described by Sweeney as a “Chechen warlord”, had led an incursion into neighbouring Dagestan, thus breaking the treaty that ended the first conflict. It should also be remembered that the second Chechen war began under Yeltsin’s presidency. This brings us to another Russian whose career was brought to a premature end. Boris Nemtsov was shot dead late at night while walking near the Kremlin. His death made a striking impression on Sweeney: “Nemtsov was an extraordinary man, the sweetest, funniest and most human Russian I’ve ever met. His brutal snuffing out caused me to sink into a profound depression.” Sweeney may be correct in suggesting that Putin has been an expert conman and that his victims included former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, UK prime minister Tony Blair and the billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Despite his extremely unsavoury reputation, Berezovsky was given asylum in London, having become one of Putin’s enemies. The phrase “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” comes to mind.

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I am a student of the causes of WW1. One thing I am certain of is that if the Kaiser, the Emperor, the Tsar and the Caliphate knew where they would be five years hence from 2014, they would have done their utmost to have stopped that war from starting. I wonder if Putin will be in a similar situation. Once you start a war you never know where it will take you. In Killer in the Kremlin , award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes readers from the heart of Putin's Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine. This book delves into Putin’s soul, it questions his birthright and sexual preferences, it looks at his close links with organised crime and how he has become so wealthy, it delves into his relationships with corrupt business leaders and politicians including ex-Presidents and how he has manipulated the Russian economy for his own benefit. It gives many detailed examples of his vindictive and controlling methods and how any criticism has put people’s live at risk. From this book it is impossible to estimate how many lost lives Putin has been responsible for, but the lists of those who were once close and have died in mysterious circumstances is extraordinary. This biography of Putin focuses on the violence he used to claim and maintain power. Author and BBC journalist John Sweeny includes his personal experiences reporting on Russia and with the ongoing war in Ukraine.

In a disturbing exposé of Putin's sinister ambition, Sweeney draws on thirty years of his own reporting - from the Moscow apartment bombings to the atrocities committed by the Russian Army in Chechnya, to the annexation of Crimea and a confrontation with Putin over the shooting down of flight MH17 - to understand the true extent of Putin's long war. The book is infused with anecdotes of Sweeney's own, which add a lot of kudos to the conclusions he draws. It also starts and finishes in Ukraine, where Sweeney based himself for 3 months of the start of the War, with the observations from that time well presented and documented. Shchekochikhin’s girlfriend Alyona Gromova recalled: “On the day he was taken to hospital, he felt very weak. After he had a shower, his hair was a mess. I went to stroke it and great handfuls of hair came out in my hand. The symptoms were confusing. First, it seemed like a cold but his face was very red, as if he had sunburn, then lumps of his skin started to flake off.” The personal tone of this book was both a strength and a weakness. It was one of the most approachable books I've read on Russia. It covers a lot of dark topics, but felt somewhat light and gossip-y. I enjoyed hearing about the author's recent experiences in Ukraine and about his interviews with people living there now. It was a vivid look at the current events that inspired me to start this reading project. On the other hand, the author's tone sometimes felt too light for the topic. His jokes and cultural references were hit or miss for me. I minded them less as the book went on, because it became clear that this is a topic that author cares about very much. Russian president Boris Yeltsin shakes hands with prime minister Vladimir Putin during their meeting at the presidential residence Gorky-9 outside Moscow, November 1999

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If you study Putin’s career, you realise that we are dealing with a hyper-aggressive psychopath whose word cannot be relied upon. He is a man who identifies compromise as weakness; who sows dissent and mistrust in the West; who likes killing. The idea that we can negotiate with Putin is foolish. Nobody in the West will be safe until he and his killing machine are stopped. Period. Yuri Shchekochikhin was a Russian MP and journalist investigating these mass killings. He had courage, tremendous energy, a nose for a story and, I’ve been told, a fondness for Armenian brandy. In January 2003, he told a friend, “For the first time in my life I feel frightened.” While unreservedly condemning his brutal murder I should admit that Nemtsov did not make a similar impression on me. When I spoke to him of the bravery of Yuri Shchekochikhin, Nemtsov scoffed and put down his death, not to poisoning, but to his “fondness for Armenian brandy”. It was a comment that lowered him in my estimation.