Putin's Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia

by Steve Levine

The new Russia is marching in an alarming direction. Emboldened by escalating oil wealth and newfound prominence as a world power, Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, has veered back toward the authoritarian roots planted in Imperial/Czarist times and firmly established during the Soviet era. Though Russia has a new president, Dmitri Medvedev, Putin remains in control, rendering the democratic reforms of the post-Soviet order irrelevant. Now, in Putin’s Labyrinth , acclaimed journalist Steve LeVine, who lived in and reported from the former Soviet Union for more than a decade, provides a penetrating account of modern Russia under the repressive rule of an all-powerful autocrat. LeVine portrays the growth of a “culture of death”–from targeted assassinations of the state’s enemies to the Kremlin’s indifference when innocent hostages are slaughtered.

Drawing on new interviews with eyewitnesses and the families of victims, LeVine documents the bloodshed that has stained Putin’s two terms as president. Among the incidents chronicled in these The 2002 terrorist takeover of a crowded Moscow theater–which led to the government gassing the building, and the deaths of more than a hundred terrified hostages–seen here from new angles, through the riveting words of those who survived; and the murder of courageous investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, shot in the elevator of her apartment building on Putin’s birthday, purportedly as a malicious “gift” for the president from supporters. Finally, a shocking story that made international headlines–the 2006 death of defector Alexander Litvinenko in London–is dramatized as never before. LeVine traces the steps of this KGB-spy-turned-dissident on his way to being poisoned with polonium - 210, a radioactive isotope. And in doing so, LeVine is granted a rare series of interviews with a KGB defector who was nearly killed in strangely similar circumstances fifty years earlier. Through LeVine’s exhaustive research, we come to know the victims as real people, not just names in brief news accounts of how they died.

Putin’s Labyrinth is more than an immensely readable exposé. It is highly personal, with the flavor of a memoir. It is a thoughtful book that examines the perplexing question of how Russians manage to negotiate their way around the ever-present danger of violence. It calculates the emotional toll that this lethal maze is exacting on ordinary people, even as they enjoy a dramatically heightened standard of living. Most ominously, it assesses the reopening of hostilities with the West, and the forces that are driving this major new confrontation.

Genres: Russia, Politics, History, Nonfiction, Russian History, Current Affairs, Journalism

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Jerry Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK book. Easy to read and moves at quite a fast pace and is short at around 165 pages. Holds the promise of a look at Vladimir Putin's presidency and certainly does cover that but overall it seems to imply that he presides over a Russia unconcerned with crime on the streets, especially murder and one that seeks to restore a strong Russia and sanction any means to achieve that.

In essence a stitching together of several stories that are all interesting in their own right but ultimately don't seem to make a cohesive case for Putin being behind them, rather that he enabled the climate in which they took place. Not particularly profound. As I say, interesting stories.

I credit Levine with giving his personal thoughts on each person he mentions, especially where he met them personally. It helps form a picture of the events, and you get the impression he is doing everything he can to be objective. Worth reading, not very deep, easy read.

[한 카트 · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an OK book. The premise of it is that Russia is still very much an autocratic state, and the Russian population is so used to the "culture of death and violence" since they have a long history with it (The Romanovs etc...), that they grew "cold and unemotional" towards it.

What bugged me about the book is the fact that the author wants to blame all the crimes he described on Putin, yet offers no tangible proof of it. It's all speculative talk that can be found on a basic Wikipedia page about those cases. Yes, Russia isn't a safe place for defectors but what state is, really? A book has to be more profound than that. And the author doesn't give enough credit to Putin for putting Russia back on the map of powerful nations when it once was virtually ignored during Stalin to Yeltsin years.

[Atharva · Rating 4 out of 5]

On page 29 of 'Putin's Labyrinth', Levine writes: "The more confident Putin became about Russia's ascendancy, the more willing he seemed to rattle Europe occasionally and poke America in the eye with some frequency." Rings very true at a point where Putin has put Ukraine in a state of civil war. Where Putin has swung the time back to the days of Soviet Union, and where journalists are shot, sometimes in cold blood, because they wrote the truth. Like Anna Politkovskaya, a daring crusader of justice for those who suffered the atrocities of Chechnya, and who showed how the Russia under Putin was like former USSR, a combination of "worst of both worlds", combining Mafia capitalism with KGB policing in another strong critical book of Putin, 'Putin's Russia'. For all the truth she revealed, she was bid goodbye with three bullets lodged in her chest, one inside her head. Journalism of truth in Russia is, quite evidently, dangerous (to put it in mid terms).

Another journalist fallen victim to the journalism of truth in Russia was Paul Klebnikov, the editor-in-chief of Forbes Russia, which was where he proclaimed that Boris Berezovsky, the multi-millionaire oligarch of Russia, was also the Godfather of the Kremlin. Maybe that got him killed, or maybe not. Maybe his book, 'Conversations with a Barbarian', his interview with the Chechen leader Khozh-Ahmed Noukhayev got him killed. In Russia, especially in the Soviet-styled Russia of Putin, you never know. It was said that he was working on a very important story, a "revealing" story, until, of course, he too was gunned down by a 9-millimeter Makarov pistol. Four bullets lodged inside Klebnikov's stomach- the guy obviously knew too much.

Alaxander Litvinenko was a KGB defector, and also the author of 'Blowing up Russia', a book on the apartment bombings in three Russian cities including Moscow, which he claimed were engineered by Putin for going to war with Chechnya; something that, to me at least, sounds both interesting and highly relevant considering the reputation of Putin and the KGB. Litvineko's life was as sad as it was interesting- he only attracted attention during the end of his time, when he was poisoned, and pictures of his dire state circulated around the World. Until then, more or less, he remained an ignored defector, although a defector who had the support of Berezovsky, and a defector who had, if nothing, some interesting anecdotes and back-stories.

'Putin's Labyrinth', more or less, revolves around these three, and other important characters including some of the survivors of Nord-Ost. The biggest asset for the book is its flow of prose. Levine perfectly combines reportage with memoir, and forms some kind of mixture, an easy to read study of what Putin's Russia really was, is, and would be- because the man is going nowhere, he has too many tricks up his sleeve, and he doesn't shy away from throwing intelligent tantrums. Also, the book couldn't have been more timely, as I mentioned earlier. Its Soviet all over again. Its a maze, a labyrinth which is hard to break into, and when you actually do, its hard to get out. Its a trap.

Thomas Friedman rightly wrote that "a wise Putin would have been fighting today to get Russia into the European Union, not to keep Ukraine out. But that is not who Putin is and never will be." Putin will forever be concerned with who is writing or saying what against him, and whether he deserves to be riddled with bullets. Putin will forever be etched inside that labyrinth of his, Putin's labyrinth.

[Mehmet Koç · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, riveting, but also speculative study on recent history of Russia, provides a different perspective...

[Jocelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

For all the complaints I have about our government, this book made me glad I don't live Russia. One of the reasons why -

"In July, Vladimir Putin signed a law...it granted the Kermlin's intelligence agencies the right-if Putin gave his approval-to assassinate Russia's enemies outside the nation's borders, including 'those slandering the individual occupying the post of president of the Russian Federation.' In other words, making a defamatory statement of Putin could be punishable by death." [pg 132:]

I had a hard time keeping track of all the different names at times, but how Putin's attitudes towards Russia and other countries was interesting and a little scary.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It turned his face into a mask of dark spots and brown stripes that oozed blood and a sticky secretion, and caused his hair to fall out in tufts. Below his neck, his ‘copper-coloured skin was tattooed with blood swellings.’ The attending physician said death was certain.” This was the description given of Nikolai Khokhlov a former spy for the KGB who refused to carry out a murder and defected to the US back in 1954. Apparently the Soviets had slipped a nuclear isotope into his coffee, a derivative of the heavy metal thallium.

There is plenty of investigative journalism books’ out there covering the Putin era and this sits comfortably up there with the best of them. LeVine has realised that the secret is to keep it short and to the point and keep them wanting more.

We see how during Yeltsin’s chaotic reign that Russia descended into the Wild West as rival gangs and oligarchs battled it out, proving that nowhere was totally safe. In 1994 a Russian journalist opened a briefcase in the belief that it contained secret documents for a story. It turned out to be a bomb and killed him instantly. In 1995, two gunmen killed a Russian stock-broker’s 6 year old daughter who was on the way to school. In 1996 a bomb buried in a Moscow cemetery killed around a dozen mourners. Clearly there were no rules, morals or codes in place to moderate the extent of the terror.

LeVine focuses on some of the major incidents and horrors that have tainted and shaped Putin’s Russia. The Ryazan Incident, Nord-Ost, Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaya, Paul Klebnikov, Alexander Litvinenko and Vladimir Putin are all examined in a pleasingly concise and informative way. Though one minor quirk is that LeVine seems to have a preoccupation with how the women he speaks to look, with bizarre comments such as, “I found both wives attractive.” As if this is somehow relevant to the poisoning and murdering of Litvinenko? Who was married to the women in question.

This is a fairly short book, but this is one of its strengths as it leaves you wanting more. I really enjoyed this, his style is sharp and to the point and there is very little fat. Instead we get a series of well-polished stories on many fascinating and terrifying aspects of modern Russia, and it does what all good writing does, by leave you wanting more.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quote-leftThis is a timely book, coming so soon after the Russian intervention is Georgia, and covers an interesting and important subject. The author states his thesis at the outset: that because of its history, Russia is a country and Russians a people more tolerant of brutal behavior by the government than others and that the current Putin regime is ruthless in crushing dissent and enforcing its one-party rule of the country.
Unfortunately what follows is remarkably thin. We go over several well-known cases -- the 2002 takeover of a Moscow theater by Chechen fighters and its brutal "liberation" by the army, the murders of Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov and of crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the poisoning of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko.
The problem is that most of the information presented could have been picked up from reading the newspapers. A book has to get beyond that -- to add insights or history or context or unknown facts -- to justify itself. There are a couple of interviews, not always relevant and remarkably unrevealing -- but little sign of real investigative journalism or deep research.
I'm sorry to be negative about this book. I think we need to know more about present-day Russia -- how the government enforces its will, how the oil and gas industry works, how much wealth is trickling down, how the infrastructure is holding up. We need to know more about the way the Russian people live and whether the current oil-based economic expansion is sustainable. We need to know more about the Russian mafia and its ties to the regime and about the FSB (successor to the KGB). We need to know about the state of the armed forces.
Unfortunately, you'll read nothing about that in this book

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is no coincidence that Putin has chosen this time during the Olympics and the US political parties' national conventions to attack and take possession of parts of Georgia that Russia and Georgia have been fighting over for hundreds of years.Vladimir Putin is Russia's new autocrat, Russia's second Josef Stalin, and America is not paying attention. As usual America and its government and citizens are too self-absorbed to think about anything that doesn't immediately appear to influence their daily lives. Citizens of America and other western allies need to stop thinking about the rhetoric and promises of Obama and McCain and read this book. They need to realize that Russia and Putin are now condoning, supporting, and aiding in the murder of Russia's journalists, defectors who are living overseas, and even American journalists working in Russia. The dissolution of the Soviet Union only gave Russia a few years of freedom and a hint of democracy. Vladimir Putin is willing to do anything to bring back the old Russian superpower status and restore the status quo of political and social repression that existed under the old Communist regimes.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at aspects of modern Russia, mostly through a series of loosely linked articles on topics such as the Nord-Ost theater incident, the murder of Politkovskaya and the poisoning of Litvinenko. The articles are interesting -- well written and well researched -- but are generally one-sided (though I guess it's hardly the author's fault Kremlin and FSB insiders won't talk to him) and provide not much more than anecdotal evidence of LeVine's central idea, which is that modern Russia allows such things because of its "culture of death." He goes a bit too far in that direction; while he gives a brief overview of Russia's autocratic history, he gives very little attention to the Yeltsin years and how they, as much as the rest of Russia's history, laid the foundation for Putin's hard turn back toward a strong state.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a dark description of how difficult it is to speak out against your government if you are a Russian. Note, there is no "Daily Show" in Russia. This book will tell you why. Seriously though, this book gets into lots of the fascinating details of the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning that took place in London a few years ago. The biggest thing to take away from this read, is that speaking out and being critical of the actions of the Russian government and Army put your life in grave danger in today's Russia. Russia may call itself a democracy these days, but it is a far cry from what we would call a free socitey with freedom of speech.

[Krystyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Levine may be a bit over the top with his assessments, but on the whole this is a very compelling (and terrifying) account of how Putin came to power and has maintained power -- told through a series of high profile assassinations and murders that you've heard about but never thought much of until now. Levine makes the case that some of this backsliding from the days of 'perestroika' is inherent to the Russian ingrained personality that distrusts that one's own government will really protect you. Very, very hard to put this down or to stop thinking about it...too bad it is not on the fiction shelf.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very concerning, the insinuations that are made of Putin’s involvement over assassinations of defectors from Russia are worrying. I write insinuating because there isn’t any solid evidence even today to give proof to this. I think we can accept that the Russian government know details, perhaps are even supporting behind the scenes — this is also insinuating. I cannot believe they wouldn’t have knowledge of these events. Until solid evidence is located I feel it is still innuendo. So saying, all of the written words in this book are troubling and horrifying to say the least.

Riveting reading all the same and worth three stars for that.

[Miriam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this book was a good overview of several events in Russia's recent past that show a troubling trend that is not a surprise to many people. I felt that the book was a little thin, that the author was trying to get it out as quickly as possible and didn't follow some of the threads through to their conclusions; in a few placed he introduced an idea or theory and then immediately dropped it. I also felt that in some places he was using his impression of a person's character as evidence. It is, however, fairly balanced overall.

[Dominika Klekner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Might be exciting for a person not familiar with the topics covered. Definitely not for someone who knows all stories about the Chechen War ever published, not for someone fed up with the media's perception of Russia being a 'reporters' murderer' and 'freedom hater'.
The bright side is, it contains an interesting story of how Putin met Medvedev and reports on certain moments that became crucial in the creation of the Russian Federation as we know it today. And since it has only 150 pages, it is worth reading.

[James Macduff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A captivating insight to Putin's Russia. A sad account which makes one feel the Russian people have never had a good ruler. Putin does not tolerate criticism, as we recently witnessed in the Pussy Riot convictions and the recent sentencing of the man who criticized the Sochi Olympics. The liberal politics of the author occasionally surface and then detract from the story. On the whole, a good book which helps me better understand the current situation in the Ukraine. Easy to read and very enlightening.

[Marlowe Brennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of conjecture from folks who hate Putin, but authored with a journalist's eye. The credibility is in the author's experience in the region. Perhaps the most salient points are the observations about Russia's stance on the encroachment of NATO and it's efforts to regain it's preeminence as a global power center. With the on-going Ukrainian crisis revisiting this is timely.

I reread this after reading it originally in 2008 on publication.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting analysis of Putin's Russia and the deaths of journalists and critics under Putin's reign. I'm concerned that it may overdramatize the situation or give credence to conspiracy theories, but it may be an accurate portrayal. It's written by a BusinessWeek reporter, and he's careful to present both sides of each story and it's easy to get through.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. The biggest story in this book is about Alexander Litvenenko, the defected former KGB agent that was poisoned by the radioactive isotope Polonium-210. He was allegedly poisoned by other KGB agents. The book followed several other political assassinations and terror attacks that happened in the former Soviet Union during the '90s till now.

[Paulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even sounding or seeming so americanized , this book fulfills a necessary oposition counterpart , so silent in Russia that needs to be lead from abroad. As I could understand , these facts and acusations are commonly considered just a kind of conspiration theory , but deserve to be taken seriously. I recomend this book to open minds.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting overview of some of murkiness within Putin's Russia. The main problem for me was that it seemed sometimes that the author's feelings towards people influenced how he viewed the veracity of their claims. Either digging deeper (probably impossible) or leaving these personal comments out would have strengthened the reporting.

[Dana Woodaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good and very disturbing look at the lawlessness that pervades Putin's Russia. I have read some other books on some of the famous killings done in this book, but this read makes it all the more clear that today's Russia is a vicious, dangerous place to live if you question the powers that be.

[Morleymor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A disturbing read. State sanctioned murder both within Russia and outside its borders probably needs to be more widely publicised? Russia's oil and gas reserves probably make this politically inexpedient?

[Elliot Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written, which made for compulsive reading; great for anyone interested in the Putin era. Has a great list of sources too to scour for more background on the KGB/FSB and power behind Russia.

[Barron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's weird that every important dissident in modern Russia was close freinds with the others. (Except Garry Kasparov.) Anna, Litvinenko, you name it.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for anyone who wants to know more about whats going on behind the scenes during Russia's rebirth on to the world statge

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compelling new read about 21st Century Russia.

[Stormy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no knowledge of Russia, Putin, or the goings-on. Learned a great deal. I've led a naive life! His other books, especially about oil and Russia would be interesting.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Illuminating, written like a reporter writing a book.

[The Tick · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, but I wanted more details. I also wanted more analysis of the events the author chose to portray.

[Velvetink]

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