As we write these lines we are still technically at peace. By the time you read them, we may all be at war. Once again the world has blundered into a terrible quagmire of mutual misunderstanding, hatred and potential destruction .
We at LSS still hope there will be time to draw back. Hope that each side will try to understand the other’s case. To do this, we must try to understand how we got here. And one valiant effort is that of Catherine Belton in Putin’s People. Catherine makes a genuine effort to understand Putin and his associates, their fears of the modern world, their genuine love for the old Soviet Union and Mother Russia. We may disagree with their analyses: but both Putin and Russian ideology are historical facts, and must be responded to accordingly, as the author makes clear.
The superb Anne Applebaum gives an excellent review below, for The Atlantic [1] (oh marvellous publication!) But we also list the book itself, as no text is probably more relevant to our current dire state.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/catherine-belton-putins-people/614212/
Belton, Catherine: Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and then Took on the West William Collins 2020
#vladimir putin #salisbury poisoning #skripal #flightmh17 #gulag #georgian republic #syria #donald trump #fakenews #cyberwar #kleptocracy #oligarchs #russia #joseph stalin #kgb
Learning, Science and Society 