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Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem and Russia's Remaking of the West
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist comes Shadow State, a timely and shocking analysis which connects Putin, Trump, and Brexit with the dark web. Based on years of investigations, Luke Harding reveals how Russian spies helped to sway the 2016 US presidential elections in favour of Trump and backed the campaign which resulted in Brexit, and how they lied, deceived, and murdered to do so. From Salisbury to Helsinki, Washington to the Ukraine, the Kremlin has attempted to reshape politics in their own mould; the future of Western democracy is at stake as a result.
341 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 12, 2020
196 people are currently reading
1631 people want to read
About the author
Luke Harding
36 books325 followersLuke Daniel Harding is a British journalist working as a foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He was the correspondent of The Guardian in Russia from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on February 5, 2011, he was refused re-entry to Russia and deported back the same day. The Guardian said his expulsion was linked with his critical articles on Russia, while Russia's foreign ministry said that an extended certificate of foreign correspondence was not obtained in time. After the reversal of the decision on February 9 and the granting of a short-term visa, Harding chose not to seek a further visa extension.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
September 19, 2020
Complementing Greg Miller's fine
The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy , Luke Harding's excellent Shadow State details Russia's tactics conducted to extend Putin's strategy to continue the recreation of Russia as a superpower. It does this by reaching across and into every area and facet of world politics, diplomacy and commerce it [Putin] deems important.
Mr Harding, a long experienced journalist, describes how the Russian state creates fear, confusion and extends its influence through compromise and collusion: Removing state "traitors"; using bribes and illicit financial trading and accounts; offensive cyber and military attacks (e.g., 2016 US elections and annexation of Crimea); social media (fake profiles and news) and personal relationships at levels that stretch across continents into the highest levels of office. This sets, creates and delivers the agenda.
That agenda has worked and continues to work. The web of collusion and compromise grows and the involvement of Russian oligarchs, state intelligence agencies (GRU, SVR and FSB), media and commerce draw in the information, stooges and situations it needs to propel messages and operations.
The books starts with the attempted murder of the Skripols in Salisbury in 2018 by GRU agents using Novichok. The tale and events are simply laid out and contextualise the next chapters on Western reaction, Russian denials and importantly US reaction and response to this event. From there the book establishes a pattern we have seen all too often in US political administrations reported thru news, media agencies, internet sites (Bellingcat for example), books, and formal investigations of concern, denial, suggestion , compromise and collusion.
The parts played by Trump, his family and his presidential administration team, and in some cases federal appointments, are connected and documented with others in operate within and or for Russia and its interests. We see the familiar names of Manafort, Cohen, Papadopoulis but where Mr Harding adds detail and underpins Greg Miller's account is operatives of the GRU and how they work and with whom.
The inclusion of detail around the GRU operations to steal the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) emails as well as how this was shared for publication by Wikileaks; the clear referencing of information from the Panama papers and the Steel dossier (former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele) - proving both have at their core truth and proof - and who met with whom, where and why provides depth and detail to allegations, and frankly the behaviours, of Trump's manipulation, collusion and compromise.
The book weaves together the side-lining and removal of US ambassadors or other Federal Government officials, the pressure on Ukraine to find proof of Hunter Biden's illegal and corrupt involvement in Ukranian oil giant Bisamol (disproven), the laughable assertion that Ukraine hacked the DNC (an organisation in a country Ukraine was hoping for diplomatic and military support against Russia) and the off-the-record two-hours meeting between Trump and Putin in Finland, and Trumps embarrassing and treasonous press conference after. It also shows how the money flowed and the donations to Republican campaign funds, including Trump's own.
In short, it provides the background and reinforcement that the FBI and Mueller reports didn't, wouldn't or couldn't reach or publish and the Republican party chose to ignore at Trump's impeachment thus setting the frame that illegality and collusion with states who are not friends to the US is okay.
As Mr Harding states in his epilogue, "The geopolitical situation was now very much to Putin's advantage. Over two decades, he had provoked and tested the West with one outrageous deed and another. There was nuclear murder of Litvinenko; the 2016 pro-Trump espionage operation; the chemical hit in Salisbury; an assassination in a Berlin park. Not to mention invasions of neighbours and annexations. A trump second term would guarantee more the same. And leave Russia emboldened on the global scene... a deadly shadow monster, on the rampage still."
My review of Greg Miller's
The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy if you are interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My copy was the 2020 Guardian Faber edition (first edition published earlier 2020). It has 324 printed pages and 27 colour photos in eight plates.
The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy , Luke Harding's excellent Shadow State details Russia's tactics conducted to extend Putin's strategy to continue the recreation of Russia as a superpower. It does this by reaching across and into every area and facet of world politics, diplomacy and commerce it [Putin] deems important. Mr Harding, a long experienced journalist, describes how the Russian state creates fear, confusion and extends its influence through compromise and collusion: Removing state "traitors"; using bribes and illicit financial trading and accounts; offensive cyber and military attacks (e.g., 2016 US elections and annexation of Crimea); social media (fake profiles and news) and personal relationships at levels that stretch across continents into the highest levels of office. This sets, creates and delivers the agenda.
That agenda has worked and continues to work. The web of collusion and compromise grows and the involvement of Russian oligarchs, state intelligence agencies (GRU, SVR and FSB), media and commerce draw in the information, stooges and situations it needs to propel messages and operations.
The books starts with the attempted murder of the Skripols in Salisbury in 2018 by GRU agents using Novichok. The tale and events are simply laid out and contextualise the next chapters on Western reaction, Russian denials and importantly US reaction and response to this event. From there the book establishes a pattern we have seen all too often in US political administrations reported thru news, media agencies, internet sites (Bellingcat for example), books, and formal investigations of concern, denial, suggestion , compromise and collusion.
The parts played by Trump, his family and his presidential administration team, and in some cases federal appointments, are connected and documented with others in operate within and or for Russia and its interests. We see the familiar names of Manafort, Cohen, Papadopoulis but where Mr Harding adds detail and underpins Greg Miller's account is operatives of the GRU and how they work and with whom.
The inclusion of detail around the GRU operations to steal the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) emails as well as how this was shared for publication by Wikileaks; the clear referencing of information from the Panama papers and the Steel dossier (former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele) - proving both have at their core truth and proof - and who met with whom, where and why provides depth and detail to allegations, and frankly the behaviours, of Trump's manipulation, collusion and compromise.
The book weaves together the side-lining and removal of US ambassadors or other Federal Government officials, the pressure on Ukraine to find proof of Hunter Biden's illegal and corrupt involvement in Ukranian oil giant Bisamol (disproven), the laughable assertion that Ukraine hacked the DNC (an organisation in a country Ukraine was hoping for diplomatic and military support against Russia) and the off-the-record two-hours meeting between Trump and Putin in Finland, and Trumps embarrassing and treasonous press conference after. It also shows how the money flowed and the donations to Republican campaign funds, including Trump's own.
In short, it provides the background and reinforcement that the FBI and Mueller reports didn't, wouldn't or couldn't reach or publish and the Republican party chose to ignore at Trump's impeachment thus setting the frame that illegality and collusion with states who are not friends to the US is okay.
As Mr Harding states in his epilogue, "The geopolitical situation was now very much to Putin's advantage. Over two decades, he had provoked and tested the West with one outrageous deed and another. There was nuclear murder of Litvinenko; the 2016 pro-Trump espionage operation; the chemical hit in Salisbury; an assassination in a Berlin park. Not to mention invasions of neighbours and annexations. A trump second term would guarantee more the same. And leave Russia emboldened on the global scene... a deadly shadow monster, on the rampage still."
My review of Greg Miller's
The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy if you are interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...My copy was the 2020 Guardian Faber edition (first edition published earlier 2020). It has 324 printed pages and 27 colour photos in eight plates.
wish-list
August 25, 2020
Peter Jukes: Still one of the most shocking lines in
lukeharding1968’s fantastic ShadowState. The former Russian Ambassador to the UK, who met Farage, Banks and Wigmore, awarded the Nevsky Medal by Putin, and celebrating the fact he’s broken Britain for a generation
March 18, 2022
Informative, but could certainly have been written in a more engaging style.
March 3, 2024
Luke Harding, a journalist and a former correspondent in Russia, is looking at how Russia and its intelligence services influenced elections and democratic processes in the USA and the UK. It is mostly a work of synthesis, much of what Harding focuses on is known and easily available in the form of journalistic investigations published by reputable press institutions. Or if you, like me, have read some books on Russian interference from others (Belton, Pomeranstev, Aro, Higgins etc.) this will provide few additional insights.
Harding focuses on a few case studies (Skripal poisoning, Trump-Russia collusion, Brexit, hacking sports organisations, hacking of the DNC etc.) and the main actors behind them. His primary concerns are how Russia influenced the election of Trump, how it was involved in swaying the British public in favour of Brexit, and how it will not stop. By reading, it becomes clear (and depressing) that the Western public is not prepared to face Russian interference, because it uses democracy and the liberties we enjoy against us, and how ill-equipped are governments to limit/stop this interference.
The most worrying fact is that even though what Russia is doing is visible, documented and clear, politicians are still actively seeking it and benefiting from it. If you set Trump aside, who is clearly unfit to hold public office, especially the highest public office in the most powerful country in the world, motivated by greed, business interests, and vanity, and from whom you do not expect any kind of moral and ethical considerations, another worrying example from the book is Boris Johnson. Even if he personally came across as flamboyant and eccentric; nevertheless, you were holding the British government as a whole to a higher standard. It was not the case. A day after his election, Johnson was celebrating with two Russians: Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev, father and son, owners of the Evening Standard, which played a part in his and his party's success. Johnson also withheld reports on Russian interference from the public. We all knew that Brexit was a dirty affair (since we learned about Cambridge Analytica), but somehow we hoped that it was a one-off, and in its aftermath leaders will behave rationally, not that they will be so brazen as to taunt us with their Russian connections and disregard to public opinion and public interest.
This is an informative read if you are completely out of the loop. If not, you may skip it.
Harding focuses on a few case studies (Skripal poisoning, Trump-Russia collusion, Brexit, hacking sports organisations, hacking of the DNC etc.) and the main actors behind them. His primary concerns are how Russia influenced the election of Trump, how it was involved in swaying the British public in favour of Brexit, and how it will not stop. By reading, it becomes clear (and depressing) that the Western public is not prepared to face Russian interference, because it uses democracy and the liberties we enjoy against us, and how ill-equipped are governments to limit/stop this interference.
The most worrying fact is that even though what Russia is doing is visible, documented and clear, politicians are still actively seeking it and benefiting from it. If you set Trump aside, who is clearly unfit to hold public office, especially the highest public office in the most powerful country in the world, motivated by greed, business interests, and vanity, and from whom you do not expect any kind of moral and ethical considerations, another worrying example from the book is Boris Johnson. Even if he personally came across as flamboyant and eccentric; nevertheless, you were holding the British government as a whole to a higher standard. It was not the case. A day after his election, Johnson was celebrating with two Russians: Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev, father and son, owners of the Evening Standard, which played a part in his and his party's success. Johnson also withheld reports on Russian interference from the public. We all knew that Brexit was a dirty affair (since we learned about Cambridge Analytica), but somehow we hoped that it was a one-off, and in its aftermath leaders will behave rationally, not that they will be so brazen as to taunt us with their Russian connections and disregard to public opinion and public interest.
This is an informative read if you are completely out of the loop. If not, you may skip it.
January 16, 2021
This book had its up and downs for me. While it for sure provided interesting insights in Russia's interference and espionage activities around the world, I found that its lack of structure did not allow for a proper development of the thesis. The best known events (mostly surrounding Trump) were cherry-picked and described in detail, at the expense of an overlying argument or cohesive analysis. The focus on Trump and his presidency even in parts not directly related to the US felt unnecessary. I also think that the book does not meet the balance of informing readers less aware of certain events (especially readers outside of the US) while adding enough new interesting aspects for more informed readers. I either felt like I was reading something that had been repeated in the news so much that it seemed repetitive or found it hard to keep up. Most chapters read like a narrative and lack evidence or sourced that would allow the reader to verify the facts. Instead an impression of the author as well-connected attendee of fancy parties is given as a reason to trust the books content. Even the chapter on sources mostly focuses on the Muller report. While I understand that a lot of the sources on topics of espionage need to stay hidden, at least giving a vague reference would have allowed the reader to evaluate the information, which was instead presented as a fact, more effectively. Unfortunately the writing style also did not manage to engage me fully.
Overall it felt as if the book was written too fast and relevant only at a time where some of the aftermath of the events were still unfolding. Potentially the author wanted to cash in before the election.
I don't think it will help anyone make sense of the described occurences in 5 years time or blow anyone's mind now. Even now the trump focus seems out of date.
Still, I felt I learned something new and got through this fairly quickly. I especially enjoyed the part on open source journalism. I just expected much more and something different - 2 Stars
Overall it felt as if the book was written too fast and relevant only at a time where some of the aftermath of the events were still unfolding. Potentially the author wanted to cash in before the election.
I don't think it will help anyone make sense of the described occurences in 5 years time or blow anyone's mind now. Even now the trump focus seems out of date.
Still, I felt I learned something new and got through this fairly quickly. I especially enjoyed the part on open source journalism. I just expected much more and something different - 2 Stars
September 20, 2020
Pretty sure the Journo is Hillary’s first child. This is NOT a book about Russia, it is a anti-Trump
Book. Every paragraph includes the word Trump. Trump may or may not but mad, but I bought the book hoping for an insight into Russia but got a Democratic 200 page leaflet instead!
Book. Every paragraph includes the word Trump. Trump may or may not but mad, but I bought the book hoping for an insight into Russia but got a Democratic 200 page leaflet instead!
August 9, 2020
Incredible. Thrilling, essential and terrifying. This book expertly details Russian involvement and continued interference in global politics and the severity of ignoring the threat.
August 8, 2020
We already knew the broad outlines of the episodes recounted by Harding here:
The tangled dealings between Trump and Russia, his toadying to Putin, the possibility of kompromat, as outlined in the Steele dossier; the hacking of the Democrats' campaign in 2016, and the release of Clinton's emails; the bemusing failure of the Mueller report to hit home; Trump's pressurising of Ukraine for his own narrow political advantage, setting up the farce of the impeachment proceedings; the hacking of WADA and the athlete doping scandal; the interactions between Kremlin associates, and key figures in the Brexit campaign; the Kremlin's use of proxies and mercenaries and oligarchs beholden to it in order to pursue its agenda aborad.
The thread running through the account is the growing confidence and brazenness of the Russian state's political strategists as they undertake a series of interventions in western democracies, characterised by the systematic manipulation of information - fake news, hacking - for disruptive purposes, and sometimes by violence against perceived enemies abroad. From the Russian perspective, fear, a sense of encirclement, and mistrust about western, particularly American, motives and objectives may help explain the Kremlin's modus operandi, but do not make it less disruptive.
Shadow State is a very readable account of these issues, especially valuable in bringing all the disparate parts together so that they can be seen as part of a bigger picture. It's notable for the depth of Harding's reporting, the range of sources, including interviews with key actors, that he deploys, and the light he throws on many of the dramatis personae at the mid and lower levels. There is much on the manoeuvrings of shadowy figures such as the GRU hackers Morenets and Serebriakov, fixers and operatives like Udod and Kilimnik, former criminals close to the Kremlin like Mogilevich, and - the Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern of Trump's meddlings in Ukraine - Parnas and Fruman. There is due consideration too for the role of citizen journalist-investigators like the reporters at Bellingcat who exposed the identity of the Salisbury poisoners.
One comes away with the strong impression that the conclusion of the Intelligence and Security Committee's report on Russia is correct: that there has been a great deal of mischief to which British politicians have turned a wilfully blind eye, for reasons that remain worryingly opaque, and with which a reckoning still needs to be made.
The tangled dealings between Trump and Russia, his toadying to Putin, the possibility of kompromat, as outlined in the Steele dossier; the hacking of the Democrats' campaign in 2016, and the release of Clinton's emails; the bemusing failure of the Mueller report to hit home; Trump's pressurising of Ukraine for his own narrow political advantage, setting up the farce of the impeachment proceedings; the hacking of WADA and the athlete doping scandal; the interactions between Kremlin associates, and key figures in the Brexit campaign; the Kremlin's use of proxies and mercenaries and oligarchs beholden to it in order to pursue its agenda aborad.
The thread running through the account is the growing confidence and brazenness of the Russian state's political strategists as they undertake a series of interventions in western democracies, characterised by the systematic manipulation of information - fake news, hacking - for disruptive purposes, and sometimes by violence against perceived enemies abroad. From the Russian perspective, fear, a sense of encirclement, and mistrust about western, particularly American, motives and objectives may help explain the Kremlin's modus operandi, but do not make it less disruptive.
Shadow State is a very readable account of these issues, especially valuable in bringing all the disparate parts together so that they can be seen as part of a bigger picture. It's notable for the depth of Harding's reporting, the range of sources, including interviews with key actors, that he deploys, and the light he throws on many of the dramatis personae at the mid and lower levels. There is much on the manoeuvrings of shadowy figures such as the GRU hackers Morenets and Serebriakov, fixers and operatives like Udod and Kilimnik, former criminals close to the Kremlin like Mogilevich, and - the Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern of Trump's meddlings in Ukraine - Parnas and Fruman. There is due consideration too for the role of citizen journalist-investigators like the reporters at Bellingcat who exposed the identity of the Salisbury poisoners.
One comes away with the strong impression that the conclusion of the Intelligence and Security Committee's report on Russia is correct: that there has been a great deal of mischief to which British politicians have turned a wilfully blind eye, for reasons that remain worryingly opaque, and with which a reckoning still needs to be made.
March 18, 2022
Luke Harding does a superb investigative journalistic job. Luke is a former Moscow correspondent and in with this book he seeks to show how sowing chaos in the west has led the Russian leader to a post-cold war triumph.
The book starts with the 2018 the Salisbury poisonings and quickly moving forward with subsequent events, such as the IT nerd Bellingcat who scoured Russia’s open and not-so-open media sources and pointed out identities of not just the Russians who used Novichok -a nerve agent only manufactured by Russia’s secret state- but also other participants in different events.
What I personally loved about this book is that it reads like a thriller, at times it felt like a James Bond script. I also liked that this book wasn't centered in Putin alone but also his close entourage and corrupted institutions. It is clearly concluded that Putin is a master in spying and is doing now what he knows best: running infiltration agents to sow chaos in the west (Harding explores different cases, such as Brexit and the US elections *Trump vs Hillary *Trump vs Biden).
Although this is not my first book by Harding, I felt that information in Shadow State was not previously covered in for example the Litvichenko book nor Collusion- therefore I didn't find the material covered in Shadow State repetitive. Considering the current crisis in Ukraine, it was very interesting the chapter (I believe the last one?) dedicated to Ukraine. It was shocking to know about how Trump took advantage of an already corrupted state and with the help of Russia managed to build a fake case against Biden in an effort to take him out of the race. Fortunately this was an epic fail, but it is deeply concerning.
The book starts with the 2018 the Salisbury poisonings and quickly moving forward with subsequent events, such as the IT nerd Bellingcat who scoured Russia’s open and not-so-open media sources and pointed out identities of not just the Russians who used Novichok -a nerve agent only manufactured by Russia’s secret state- but also other participants in different events.
What I personally loved about this book is that it reads like a thriller, at times it felt like a James Bond script. I also liked that this book wasn't centered in Putin alone but also his close entourage and corrupted institutions. It is clearly concluded that Putin is a master in spying and is doing now what he knows best: running infiltration agents to sow chaos in the west (Harding explores different cases, such as Brexit and the US elections *Trump vs Hillary *Trump vs Biden).
Although this is not my first book by Harding, I felt that information in Shadow State was not previously covered in for example the Litvichenko book nor Collusion- therefore I didn't find the material covered in Shadow State repetitive. Considering the current crisis in Ukraine, it was very interesting the chapter (I believe the last one?) dedicated to Ukraine. It was shocking to know about how Trump took advantage of an already corrupted state and with the help of Russia managed to build a fake case against Biden in an effort to take him out of the race. Fortunately this was an epic fail, but it is deeply concerning.
August 20, 2020
A fairly comprehensive and rather stirring account of Russia’s exploits over the past decade, aimed at destabilising the Western democracies. The usual culprits come up – Litvinenko and Skripal assassinations in the UK, 2016 US presidential elections, 2016 Brexit vote, but also Russia’s support for the European populist far right plus overt, and covert, support for different Russia-friendly forces in the Middle East (Syria), Africa, Latin America, or Ukraine, aimed at neutralising Western influence.
An interesting conclusion may be the apparent contrast between the professionalism and effectiveness of the Russian private sector (mainly Prigozhin’s Wagner Group and St Petersburg troll farms, both representing the interests of the Kremlin in exchange for endless favours doled out to Prigozhin’s businesses) in undermining the Western democracies versus their public sector peers (mainly GRU and FSB). The story of how a British computer geek turned amateur spy managed to identify hundreds of GRU operatives by buying and analysing illegitimate database of Moscow car registrations just because, in order to prevent being harassed by corrupt traffic cops, they all registered their cars at the address of GRU’s HQ, is hilarious. Equally unbelievable is the botched assassination of Sergei Skripal. As if the GRU did not have a more effective means of dispatching a person than with the use of a chemical weapon, particularly if unsuccessful.
The book is inconsistent at times. Some chapters give the impression of being thoroughly researched with the connections between the various dramatis personae pieced together very well. Some others throw in together many facts ostensibly fitting together, but which may equally well be unconnected. Reading the latter, and having seen some books written in a similar style, I could not but wonder whether many of the alleged Russian spies working for the GRU, SVR or FSB, were in fact people trying, albeit unscrupulously, to make money by entering the world of big politics and business under certain pretences. The difficulty of providing facts, pertaining to the Russian secret services, beyond reasonable doubt is well appreciated, given opaque nature of such structures, hence the still appreciative review.
All in all, the picture painted by the author, even if not 100% perfectly supported, is troubling and the book, thus, well worth reading.
An interesting conclusion may be the apparent contrast between the professionalism and effectiveness of the Russian private sector (mainly Prigozhin’s Wagner Group and St Petersburg troll farms, both representing the interests of the Kremlin in exchange for endless favours doled out to Prigozhin’s businesses) in undermining the Western democracies versus their public sector peers (mainly GRU and FSB). The story of how a British computer geek turned amateur spy managed to identify hundreds of GRU operatives by buying and analysing illegitimate database of Moscow car registrations just because, in order to prevent being harassed by corrupt traffic cops, they all registered their cars at the address of GRU’s HQ, is hilarious. Equally unbelievable is the botched assassination of Sergei Skripal. As if the GRU did not have a more effective means of dispatching a person than with the use of a chemical weapon, particularly if unsuccessful.
The book is inconsistent at times. Some chapters give the impression of being thoroughly researched with the connections between the various dramatis personae pieced together very well. Some others throw in together many facts ostensibly fitting together, but which may equally well be unconnected. Reading the latter, and having seen some books written in a similar style, I could not but wonder whether many of the alleged Russian spies working for the GRU, SVR or FSB, were in fact people trying, albeit unscrupulously, to make money by entering the world of big politics and business under certain pretences. The difficulty of providing facts, pertaining to the Russian secret services, beyond reasonable doubt is well appreciated, given opaque nature of such structures, hence the still appreciative review.
All in all, the picture painted by the author, even if not 100% perfectly supported, is troubling and the book, thus, well worth reading.
January 1, 2022
A solid work of investigative journalism and a book laden with interesting information. Compared to other books of a similar style that I have reviewed (e.g. Warrick's Red Line, Perlroth's This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends), I do think it falls a little short, though.
The book is certainly fast-paced but at times seems to get bogged down by detail; Harding introduces numerous characters, many of whom are discussed by reference to their relationship with other characters. This creates a tangled and often complex web that, in some chapters, may be difficult to follow. Overall, the book gives the reader a good general understanding of Russia's influence on the West and particularly the 2016 US election. However, to best make sense of the text's granular detail, it may be necessary to reread or slowly read it.
I've given it a 4 as to give it a 3 would be harsh (surely Goodreads can adopt a 1-10 scale??). It probably sits somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4
The book is certainly fast-paced but at times seems to get bogged down by detail; Harding introduces numerous characters, many of whom are discussed by reference to their relationship with other characters. This creates a tangled and often complex web that, in some chapters, may be difficult to follow. Overall, the book gives the reader a good general understanding of Russia's influence on the West and particularly the 2016 US election. However, to best make sense of the text's granular detail, it may be necessary to reread or slowly read it.
I've given it a 4 as to give it a 3 would be harsh (surely Goodreads can adopt a 1-10 scale??). It probably sits somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4
November 28, 2020
A chilling look at the lying, corruption, avarice, and downright treason of some Western politicians and business leaders under the influence of Putin’s spies, hackers and thugs. Thoroughly dispiriting. Makes me all the more determined that I will check and double-check anything these mendacious hyenas say.
March 9, 2021
This is curiously disjointed, tending to lurch from topic to topic, even within paragraphs. It left me feeling disoriented amid a welter of names, detail and non sequiturs, and without the necessary clear narrative thread to understand truly the premise. A much better book will hopefully be written one day.
March 24, 2021
Rushed, and not as well-plotted as it could be.
Some issues with guilt by association and painting certain behaviour negatively while hand-waving over other parties (in a non-political sense) doing the same/similar things.
Some issues with guilt by association and painting certain behaviour negatively while hand-waving over other parties (in a non-political sense) doing the same/similar things.
December 15, 2020
This is. A very informative. And enlightening book. In terms of current. Geopolitics! The author explains why. You should care about things! That aren’t explained clearly by the news. Such as Russian interference. In elections.
But his prose. Is annoying as f#ck. Too many short sentences. And unnecessary. Exclamation marks! And forcing the word “shadow” far too much.
He also is far too forgiving of the Tory government when they do the same things that he rips Trump to shreds for doing. But still, this is an important read to help understand the madness in the news at the moment.
But his prose. Is annoying as f#ck. Too many short sentences. And unnecessary. Exclamation marks! And forcing the word “shadow” far too much.
He also is far too forgiving of the Tory government when they do the same things that he rips Trump to shreds for doing. But still, this is an important read to help understand the madness in the news at the moment.
March 20, 2024
best part was when i fell asleep.
October 31, 2023
This is a terrific book. I lived in the SU/Russia, and I can't figure out why so many people dont' take Putin at his word--or know what he is capable of. Luke Harding does. The web of lies, intrigue, tricks, and I don't know what to call it is so thick you can barely see through it. Trump is Putin's most useful idiot, since he has no ideology by himself.
August 12, 2024
Absolutely terrifying
July 10, 2023
En veldig spennende bok om hvordan Russland forsøker å destabilisere vesten. Anbefales.
June 6, 2023
kuuntelin tän kyl suomeks mut oli tosi kiinnostava
September 13, 2024
This is a scary book. I thought I had some idea about the disinformation / on line campaigns being waged by Russia, but I really didn’t know the extent of what has been going on. The widely reported murders and unexplained deaths are only part of this insidious campaign against the west. This has been meticulously researched and the author has used a combination of open source personal contacts. Well worth a read.
September 23, 2020
Very interesting. And scary. And full of surprising details.
September 11, 2020
Revelations upon revelations. A thoroughly depressing indictment of Russia's role in manipulating events across the world, and the role of their leading puppet in the Oval Office. The lack of integrity in the current leaders of the USA and the UK acts as an encouragement to those who have their own agendas and who wish the death of democracy and liberal values. Collusion all round, sometimes deliberate, sometimes out of sheer stupidity. The upsurge in nationalism and populism in the USA and across Europe hasn't just happened by chance.
September 3, 2020
Putin's Greatest Hits
Luke Harding's reporting of Putin's greatest hits goes up to 2020, so it misses the Navalny hit by a few months - one of his most audacious. While this most recent Russia based book is not as personal or original as Harding's previous work (recommended), it still packs a punch in bringing together evidence of his malign rule and of course, relation to Trump.
One exception to the refried rule is the late focus on the delightful Killimnic - the GRU aide to Manafort, who has proved one of Putin's most effective operatives. He is the man who met with Manafort to get Trump's polling data, which was then handed on to the GRU for their trolls to start working. Alongside Manafort in Ukraine, Killimnic is one of the most intriguing characters, the solid GRU link between Putin and Trump.
As usual, Harding writes well, a compelling journalist who can tell a story. And what a story! Taken as a whole, this is a pretty good, easy read about the 21st Century's most obvious villain and his puppets.
Russia, who knew how horrible you still are? Luke Harding, for one.
Luke Harding's reporting of Putin's greatest hits goes up to 2020, so it misses the Navalny hit by a few months - one of his most audacious. While this most recent Russia based book is not as personal or original as Harding's previous work (recommended), it still packs a punch in bringing together evidence of his malign rule and of course, relation to Trump.
One exception to the refried rule is the late focus on the delightful Killimnic - the GRU aide to Manafort, who has proved one of Putin's most effective operatives. He is the man who met with Manafort to get Trump's polling data, which was then handed on to the GRU for their trolls to start working. Alongside Manafort in Ukraine, Killimnic is one of the most intriguing characters, the solid GRU link between Putin and Trump.
As usual, Harding writes well, a compelling journalist who can tell a story. And what a story! Taken as a whole, this is a pretty good, easy read about the 21st Century's most obvious villain and his puppets.
Russia, who knew how horrible you still are? Luke Harding, for one.
August 2, 2020
“We’re living in a post-truth world”. What does that even mean? What it is often taken to mean is that the truth is unknowable and that all you have is a fog of conflicting narratives that serve the interests of those who spin than. You can’t know the truth. In fact, what is truth?
This is not only ironic in the internet age where the sum total of human knowledge sits on a device in your pocket, it is also lazy and complete bullshit. Of course, there is truth. The number of people who went to Trump’s inauguration is a fact, not some invented figure the current bogus POTUS wants to claim on Twitter. Someone shot down Malaysian airliner MH17; it’s not just something that you can approach with a shrug of the shoulders – “maybe we’ll never know”. The truth hasn’t gone away, it’s just been enmired in a bog of untruths. As the Bellingcat investigative process shows, if you are prepared to spend the time and use the wisdom of crowds, rather than the current tendency to spread the pig ignorance of crowds, you can find out the truth behind all sorts of things, notably who shot down MH17.
To get to the truth, you listen to those who are most likely to provide it – experts, academics and investigative journalists. You don’t listen to some bloke your mate’s cousin met down the pub (purportedly) which he told you about on Facebook. Luke Harding, Guardian journalist and Russia expert, is one of those people you can trust and whose writing is extremely informative and important. His latest book, Shadow State – Murder Mayhem and Russia’s Remaking of the West, is a sort of sequel to his earlier book, Collusion, which examined the likelihood of Trump’s active efforts to encourage Moscow’s attempt to put him in power.
What this new book does is to shine a light on Putin’s attempts to undermine the West and recreate the USSR. There are those in Russia, no doubt many, who see the breakup of the Soviet Union as a total betrayal and they aren’t going to take it lying down. Hence wars in Chechnya, or Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Bearing in mind that power in the Kremlin and in Russia generally is firmly in the hands of past and present KGB and GRU officers, this is hardly surprising. Having invested their lives and careers in fighting the West, they didn’t just think, oh well, what the hell, if you can’t beat them, join them. What they thought was, let’s grab that cash with both hands and make a stash and do what we can to torpedo Western democracy while we are about it.
In Asterix and the Roman Agent, according to the blurb, “Julius Caesar resorts to psychological warfare to defeat the little Gaulish village by sending expert troublemaker Tortuous Convolulus to set friend against friend. Jealousy soon spreads as the Gauls become suspicious of each other.” This is exactly the Russian playbook as exposed by Harding. From fake social media accounts to internet trolls, from funding populist far-right movements across the globe (communism is completely old had, a debunked means of holding on to power), to influencing debate and elections via fair means and foul, Russia seeks to recover its status as a world power (despite its second-rate economy) by destabilising the Western democracies.
So far, it’s a plan that has worked admirably. By intervening in Brexit and tipping the balance against the EU, it has weakened both the EU and created a future basket case out of Britain. Having dealt with Britain, an old Cold War enemy, it is now seeking to dismantle the EU by fuelling disgruntlement in most member countries, from Italy to Poland, Hungary to Austria, favouring regimes that would be right-wing dictatorships if only given the chance. France will be next on the list when Marie Le Pen makes an even closer bid on the presidency next time around. I wonder what influence Russia had on the Yellow Jacket (Gilet Jaunes) protests? I can’t think it was negligible if they have their finger on the pulse and certainly in the US and the UK they do. And of course, in the US they have either managed to get their asset elected President, or at the very least, have managed to get a narcissistic dope installed in the Oval Office, someone they can play like a somewhat discordant musical instrument. And in so doing, they have set half the country against the other half so that civility is a thing of the past and rank ignorance masquerades as informed opinion.
Harding’s work shows how the Russians behave with impunity in the West, turning the freedoms of the West against itself. How come a Russian state propaganda TV channel like Russia Today (RT) is allowed to broadcast in the UK? Because, apparently, our laws of freedom of expression allow it. Can an ex-KGB officer become the owner of an influential newspaper, London’s Evening Standard? Certainly. Just a question of money. It all seems so normal. I wonder what would happen if the BBC wanted to set up a special pro-UK TV station in Moscow? Or perhaps if British businessmen wanted to own Pravda? Not so easy perhaps. One rule for some, a different rule for others.
The situation, baldly, is this: ex-Russian secret service people – KGB, FSB, GRU – got their hands on all state assets of value in the early days of the Russian Federation. They thieved and murdered their way to obscene wealth. How else do you accumulate billions of dollars in a few short years if it isn’t through crime and how do you hang on to it in a dog-eat-dog world if it isn’t through thuggery? But cruising around on the Black Sea in your newly-acquired superyacht isn’t that interesting, so they decided instead to live a jet-setting lifestyle in the West, in London, Monaco, New York, the Caribbean and Dubai. And a small portion of their ill-gotten gains served to make the makers of superyachts, luxury cars, art dealers and estate agents wealthy in turn. Their grubby cash financed smart office blocks and paid elite schools and universities to educate their privileged kids. The West, especially the US and UK, turned a blind eye and sent a message that so long as you had money, you were welcome. It didn’t matter how you got it. Putin’s friends live in London. Putin sends killers to murder his enemies in the UK, by hanging, strangulation, nerve agents or radioactive substances. No one says Boo! The nicest bits of London have become an oligarch’s playground. The only people who can still afford to live there are those who partake in some shape or form of the oligarchs’ cash. To put it another way, the West is for sale, or to use the more innocuous-sounding phrase that UK politicians like to quote: “The UK is open for business”. It just doesn’t matter what that business is.
Shadow State didn’t tell me all that much that I didn’t already know, as I follow the news and Harding’s work in the Guardian. I listen to the Bellingcat podcast. I listen to many podcasts from reputable news sources – The BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Wall Street Journal. But I was unaware of The Wagner Group, the shadowy Russian mercenaries deniably involved in all sorts of wars and armed disputes. And yet what do I read today, coincidentally? That a couple of hundred of them have been detained in Belarus prior to the upcoming “election” whereby the current dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, will be returned to office. It seems that suddenly, Lukashenko isn’t so keen on being part of a greater Russia, so Putin has sent some goons to encourage a more reasonable point of view. Watch this space as Russia annexes Belarus.
The only hope for Western democracy lies in people like Harding. So long as they are prepared to turn on a fog light, we can still naively hope that the powers of greed and corruption will one day be defeated.
This is not only ironic in the internet age where the sum total of human knowledge sits on a device in your pocket, it is also lazy and complete bullshit. Of course, there is truth. The number of people who went to Trump’s inauguration is a fact, not some invented figure the current bogus POTUS wants to claim on Twitter. Someone shot down Malaysian airliner MH17; it’s not just something that you can approach with a shrug of the shoulders – “maybe we’ll never know”. The truth hasn’t gone away, it’s just been enmired in a bog of untruths. As the Bellingcat investigative process shows, if you are prepared to spend the time and use the wisdom of crowds, rather than the current tendency to spread the pig ignorance of crowds, you can find out the truth behind all sorts of things, notably who shot down MH17.
To get to the truth, you listen to those who are most likely to provide it – experts, academics and investigative journalists. You don’t listen to some bloke your mate’s cousin met down the pub (purportedly) which he told you about on Facebook. Luke Harding, Guardian journalist and Russia expert, is one of those people you can trust and whose writing is extremely informative and important. His latest book, Shadow State – Murder Mayhem and Russia’s Remaking of the West, is a sort of sequel to his earlier book, Collusion, which examined the likelihood of Trump’s active efforts to encourage Moscow’s attempt to put him in power.
What this new book does is to shine a light on Putin’s attempts to undermine the West and recreate the USSR. There are those in Russia, no doubt many, who see the breakup of the Soviet Union as a total betrayal and they aren’t going to take it lying down. Hence wars in Chechnya, or Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Bearing in mind that power in the Kremlin and in Russia generally is firmly in the hands of past and present KGB and GRU officers, this is hardly surprising. Having invested their lives and careers in fighting the West, they didn’t just think, oh well, what the hell, if you can’t beat them, join them. What they thought was, let’s grab that cash with both hands and make a stash and do what we can to torpedo Western democracy while we are about it.
In Asterix and the Roman Agent, according to the blurb, “Julius Caesar resorts to psychological warfare to defeat the little Gaulish village by sending expert troublemaker Tortuous Convolulus to set friend against friend. Jealousy soon spreads as the Gauls become suspicious of each other.” This is exactly the Russian playbook as exposed by Harding. From fake social media accounts to internet trolls, from funding populist far-right movements across the globe (communism is completely old had, a debunked means of holding on to power), to influencing debate and elections via fair means and foul, Russia seeks to recover its status as a world power (despite its second-rate economy) by destabilising the Western democracies.
So far, it’s a plan that has worked admirably. By intervening in Brexit and tipping the balance against the EU, it has weakened both the EU and created a future basket case out of Britain. Having dealt with Britain, an old Cold War enemy, it is now seeking to dismantle the EU by fuelling disgruntlement in most member countries, from Italy to Poland, Hungary to Austria, favouring regimes that would be right-wing dictatorships if only given the chance. France will be next on the list when Marie Le Pen makes an even closer bid on the presidency next time around. I wonder what influence Russia had on the Yellow Jacket (Gilet Jaunes) protests? I can’t think it was negligible if they have their finger on the pulse and certainly in the US and the UK they do. And of course, in the US they have either managed to get their asset elected President, or at the very least, have managed to get a narcissistic dope installed in the Oval Office, someone they can play like a somewhat discordant musical instrument. And in so doing, they have set half the country against the other half so that civility is a thing of the past and rank ignorance masquerades as informed opinion.
Harding’s work shows how the Russians behave with impunity in the West, turning the freedoms of the West against itself. How come a Russian state propaganda TV channel like Russia Today (RT) is allowed to broadcast in the UK? Because, apparently, our laws of freedom of expression allow it. Can an ex-KGB officer become the owner of an influential newspaper, London’s Evening Standard? Certainly. Just a question of money. It all seems so normal. I wonder what would happen if the BBC wanted to set up a special pro-UK TV station in Moscow? Or perhaps if British businessmen wanted to own Pravda? Not so easy perhaps. One rule for some, a different rule for others.
The situation, baldly, is this: ex-Russian secret service people – KGB, FSB, GRU – got their hands on all state assets of value in the early days of the Russian Federation. They thieved and murdered their way to obscene wealth. How else do you accumulate billions of dollars in a few short years if it isn’t through crime and how do you hang on to it in a dog-eat-dog world if it isn’t through thuggery? But cruising around on the Black Sea in your newly-acquired superyacht isn’t that interesting, so they decided instead to live a jet-setting lifestyle in the West, in London, Monaco, New York, the Caribbean and Dubai. And a small portion of their ill-gotten gains served to make the makers of superyachts, luxury cars, art dealers and estate agents wealthy in turn. Their grubby cash financed smart office blocks and paid elite schools and universities to educate their privileged kids. The West, especially the US and UK, turned a blind eye and sent a message that so long as you had money, you were welcome. It didn’t matter how you got it. Putin’s friends live in London. Putin sends killers to murder his enemies in the UK, by hanging, strangulation, nerve agents or radioactive substances. No one says Boo! The nicest bits of London have become an oligarch’s playground. The only people who can still afford to live there are those who partake in some shape or form of the oligarchs’ cash. To put it another way, the West is for sale, or to use the more innocuous-sounding phrase that UK politicians like to quote: “The UK is open for business”. It just doesn’t matter what that business is.
Shadow State didn’t tell me all that much that I didn’t already know, as I follow the news and Harding’s work in the Guardian. I listen to the Bellingcat podcast. I listen to many podcasts from reputable news sources – The BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Wall Street Journal. But I was unaware of The Wagner Group, the shadowy Russian mercenaries deniably involved in all sorts of wars and armed disputes. And yet what do I read today, coincidentally? That a couple of hundred of them have been detained in Belarus prior to the upcoming “election” whereby the current dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, will be returned to office. It seems that suddenly, Lukashenko isn’t so keen on being part of a greater Russia, so Putin has sent some goons to encourage a more reasonable point of view. Watch this space as Russia annexes Belarus.
The only hope for Western democracy lies in people like Harding. So long as they are prepared to turn on a fog light, we can still naively hope that the powers of greed and corruption will one day be defeated.
October 4, 2021
“We’re living in a post-truth world”. What does that even mean? What it is often taken to mean is that the truth is unknowable and that all you have is a fog of conflicting narratives that serve the interests of those who spin than. You can’t know the truth. In fact, what is truth?
This is not only ironic in the internet age where the sum total of human knowledge sits on a device in your pocket, it is also lazy and complete bullshit. Of course, there is truth. The number of people who went to Trump’s inauguration is a fact, not some invented figure the current bogus POTUS wants to claim on Twitter. Someone shot down Malaysian airliner MH17; it’s not just something that you can approach with a shrug of the shoulders – “maybe we’ll never know”. The truth hasn’t gone away, it’s just been enmired in a bog of untruths. As the Bellingcat investigative process shows, if you are prepared to spend the time and use the wisdom of crowds, rather than the current tendency to spread the pig ignorance of crowds, you can find out the truth behind all sorts of things, notably who shot down MH17.
To get to the truth, you listen to those who are most likely to provide it – experts, academics and investigative journalists. You don’t listen to some bloke your mate’s cousin met down the pub (purportedly) which he told you about on Facebook. Luke Harding, Guardian journalist and Russia expert, is one of those people you can trust and whose writing is extremely informative and important. His latest book, Shadow State – Murder Mayhem and Russia’s Remaking of the West, is a sort of sequel to his earlier book, Collusion, which examined the likelihood of Trump’s active efforts to encourage Moscow’s attempt to put him in power.
What this new book does is to shine a light on Putin’s attempts to undermine the West and recreate the USSR. There are those in Russia, no doubt many, who see the breakup of the Soviet Union as a total betrayal and they aren’t going to take it lying down. Hence wars in Chechnya, or Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Bearing in mind that power in the Kremlin and in Russia generally is firmly in the hands of past and present KGB and GRU officers, this is hardly surprising. Having invested their lives and careers in fighting the West, they didn’t just think, oh well, what the hell, if you can’t beat them, join them. What they thought was, let’s grab that cash with both hands and make a stash and do what we can to torpedo Western democracy while we are about it.
In Asterix and the Roman Agent, according to the blurb, “Julius Caesar resorts to psychological warfare to defeat the little Gaulish village by sending expert troublemaker Tortuous Convolulus to set friend against friend. Jealousy soon spreads as the Gauls become suspicious of each other.” This is exactly the Russian playbook as exposed by Harding. From fake social media accounts to internet trolls, from funding populist far-right movements across the globe (communism is completely old had, a debunked means of holding on to power), to influencing debate and elections via fair means and foul, Russia seeks to recover its status as a world power (despite its second-rate economy) by destabilising the Western democracies.
So far, it’s a plan that has worked admirably. By intervening in Brexit and tipping the balance against the EU, it has weakened both the EU and created a future basket case out of Britain. Having dealt with Britain, an old Cold War enemy, it is now seeking to dismantle the EU by fuelling disgruntlement in most member countries, from Italy to Poland, Hungary to Austria, favouring regimes that would be right-wing dictatorships if only given the chance. France will be next on the list when Marie Le Pen makes an even closer bid on the presidency next time around. I wonder what influence Russia had on the Yellow Jacket (Gilet Jaunes) protests? I can’t think it was negligible if they have their finger on the pulse and certainly in the US and the UK they do. And of course, in the US they have either managed to get their asset elected President, or at the very least, have managed to get a narcissistic dope installed in the Oval Office, someone they can play like a somewhat discordant musical instrument. And in so doing, they have set half the country against the other half so that civility is a thing of the past and rank ignorance masquerades as informed opinion.
Harding’s work shows how the Russians behave with impunity in the West, turning the freedoms of the West against itself. How come a Russian state propaganda TV channel like Russia Today (RT) is allowed to broadcast in the UK? Because, apparently, our laws of freedom of expression allow it. Can an ex-KGB officer become the owner of an influential newspaper, London’s Evening Standard? Certainly. Just a question of money. It all seems so normal. I wonder what would happen if the BBC wanted to set up a special pro-UK TV station in Moscow? Or perhaps if British businessmen wanted to own Pravda? Not so easy perhaps. One rule for some, a different rule for others.
The situation, baldly, is this: ex-Russian secret service people – KGB, FSB, GRU – got their hands on all state assets of value in the early days of the Russian Federation. They thieved and murdered their way to obscene wealth. How else do you accumulate billions of dollars in a few short years if it isn’t through crime and how do you hang on to it in a dog-eat-dog world if it isn’t through thuggery? But cruising around on the Black Sea in your newly-acquired superyacht isn’t that interesting, so they decided instead to live a jet-setting lifestyle in the West, in London, Monaco, New York, the Caribbean and Dubai. And a small portion of their ill-gotten gains served to make the makers of superyachts, luxury cars, art dealers and estate agents wealthy in turn. Their grubby cash financed smart office blocks and paid elite schools and universities to educate their privileged kids. The West, especially the US and UK, turned a blind eye and sent a message that so long as you had money, you were welcome. It didn’t matter how you got it. Putin’s friends live in London. Putin sends killers to murder his enemies in the UK, by hanging, strangulation, nerve agents or radioactive substances. No one says Boo! The nicest bits of London have become an oligarch’s playground. The only people who can still afford to live there are those who partake in some shape or form of the oligarchs’ cash. To put it another way, the West is for sale, or to use the more innocuous-sounding phrase that UK politicians like to quote: “The UK is open for business”. It just doesn’t matter what that business is.
Shadow State didn’t tell me all that much that I didn’t already know, as I follow the news and Harding’s work in the Guardian. I listen to the Bellingcat podcast. I listen to many podcasts from reputable news sources – The BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Wall Street Journal. But I was unaware of The Wagner Group, the shadowy Russian mercenaries deniably involved in all sorts of wars and armed disputes. And yet what do I read today, coincidentally? That a couple of hundred of them have been detained in Belarus prior to the upcoming “election” whereby the current dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, will be returned to office. It seems that suddenly, Lukashenko isn’t so keen on being part of a greater Russia, so Putin has sent some goons to encourage a more reasonable point of view. Watch this space as Russia annexes Belarus.
The only hope for Western democracy lies in people like Harding. So long as they are prepared to turn on a fog light, we can still naively hope that the powers of greed and corruption will one day be defeated.
This is not only ironic in the internet age where the sum total of human knowledge sits on a device in your pocket, it is also lazy and complete bullshit. Of course, there is truth. The number of people who went to Trump’s inauguration is a fact, not some invented figure the current bogus POTUS wants to claim on Twitter. Someone shot down Malaysian airliner MH17; it’s not just something that you can approach with a shrug of the shoulders – “maybe we’ll never know”. The truth hasn’t gone away, it’s just been enmired in a bog of untruths. As the Bellingcat investigative process shows, if you are prepared to spend the time and use the wisdom of crowds, rather than the current tendency to spread the pig ignorance of crowds, you can find out the truth behind all sorts of things, notably who shot down MH17.
To get to the truth, you listen to those who are most likely to provide it – experts, academics and investigative journalists. You don’t listen to some bloke your mate’s cousin met down the pub (purportedly) which he told you about on Facebook. Luke Harding, Guardian journalist and Russia expert, is one of those people you can trust and whose writing is extremely informative and important. His latest book, Shadow State – Murder Mayhem and Russia’s Remaking of the West, is a sort of sequel to his earlier book, Collusion, which examined the likelihood of Trump’s active efforts to encourage Moscow’s attempt to put him in power.
What this new book does is to shine a light on Putin’s attempts to undermine the West and recreate the USSR. There are those in Russia, no doubt many, who see the breakup of the Soviet Union as a total betrayal and they aren’t going to take it lying down. Hence wars in Chechnya, or Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Bearing in mind that power in the Kremlin and in Russia generally is firmly in the hands of past and present KGB and GRU officers, this is hardly surprising. Having invested their lives and careers in fighting the West, they didn’t just think, oh well, what the hell, if you can’t beat them, join them. What they thought was, let’s grab that cash with both hands and make a stash and do what we can to torpedo Western democracy while we are about it.
In Asterix and the Roman Agent, according to the blurb, “Julius Caesar resorts to psychological warfare to defeat the little Gaulish village by sending expert troublemaker Tortuous Convolulus to set friend against friend. Jealousy soon spreads as the Gauls become suspicious of each other.” This is exactly the Russian playbook as exposed by Harding. From fake social media accounts to internet trolls, from funding populist far-right movements across the globe (communism is completely old had, a debunked means of holding on to power), to influencing debate and elections via fair means and foul, Russia seeks to recover its status as a world power (despite its second-rate economy) by destabilising the Western democracies.
So far, it’s a plan that has worked admirably. By intervening in Brexit and tipping the balance against the EU, it has weakened both the EU and created a future basket case out of Britain. Having dealt with Britain, an old Cold War enemy, it is now seeking to dismantle the EU by fuelling disgruntlement in most member countries, from Italy to Poland, Hungary to Austria, favouring regimes that would be right-wing dictatorships if only given the chance. France will be next on the list when Marie Le Pen makes an even closer bid on the presidency next time around. I wonder what influence Russia had on the Yellow Jacket (Gilet Jaunes) protests? I can’t think it was negligible if they have their finger on the pulse and certainly in the US and the UK they do. And of course, in the US they have either managed to get their asset elected President, or at the very least, have managed to get a narcissistic dope installed in the Oval Office, someone they can play like a somewhat discordant musical instrument. And in so doing, they have set half the country against the other half so that civility is a thing of the past and rank ignorance masquerades as informed opinion.
Harding’s work shows how the Russians behave with impunity in the West, turning the freedoms of the West against itself. How come a Russian state propaganda TV channel like Russia Today (RT) is allowed to broadcast in the UK? Because, apparently, our laws of freedom of expression allow it. Can an ex-KGB officer become the owner of an influential newspaper, London’s Evening Standard? Certainly. Just a question of money. It all seems so normal. I wonder what would happen if the BBC wanted to set up a special pro-UK TV station in Moscow? Or perhaps if British businessmen wanted to own Pravda? Not so easy perhaps. One rule for some, a different rule for others.
The situation, baldly, is this: ex-Russian secret service people – KGB, FSB, GRU – got their hands on all state assets of value in the early days of the Russian Federation. They thieved and murdered their way to obscene wealth. How else do you accumulate billions of dollars in a few short years if it isn’t through crime and how do you hang on to it in a dog-eat-dog world if it isn’t through thuggery? But cruising around on the Black Sea in your newly-acquired superyacht isn’t that interesting, so they decided instead to live a jet-setting lifestyle in the West, in London, Monaco, New York, the Caribbean and Dubai. And a small portion of their ill-gotten gains served to make the makers of superyachts, luxury cars, art dealers and estate agents wealthy in turn. Their grubby cash financed smart office blocks and paid elite schools and universities to educate their privileged kids. The West, especially the US and UK, turned a blind eye and sent a message that so long as you had money, you were welcome. It didn’t matter how you got it. Putin’s friends live in London. Putin sends killers to murder his enemies in the UK, by hanging, strangulation, nerve agents or radioactive substances. No one says Boo! The nicest bits of London have become an oligarch’s playground. The only people who can still afford to live there are those who partake in some shape or form of the oligarchs’ cash. To put it another way, the West is for sale, or to use the more innocuous-sounding phrase that UK politicians like to quote: “The UK is open for business”. It just doesn’t matter what that business is.
Shadow State didn’t tell me all that much that I didn’t already know, as I follow the news and Harding’s work in the Guardian. I listen to the Bellingcat podcast. I listen to many podcasts from reputable news sources – The BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Wall Street Journal. But I was unaware of The Wagner Group, the shadowy Russian mercenaries deniably involved in all sorts of wars and armed disputes. And yet what do I read today, coincidentally? That a couple of hundred of them have been detained in Belarus prior to the upcoming “election” whereby the current dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, will be returned to office. It seems that suddenly, Lukashenko isn’t so keen on being part of a greater Russia, so Putin has sent some goons to encourage a more reasonable point of view. Watch this space as Russia annexes Belarus.
The only hope for Western democracy lies in people like Harding. So long as they are prepared to turn on a fog light, we can still naively hope that the powers of greed and corruption will one day be defeated.
February 19, 2022
Massive breadth, yet no depth. Too much crammed in this book, meaning that major events are condensed poorly instep single chapters or even pages.
The author writes not like a journalist, but like a journo, and I mean that in the worst / tabloid-esque way.
The author writes not like a journalist, but like a journo, and I mean that in the worst / tabloid-esque way.
October 8, 2020
Journalist Luke Harding was the Guardian's foreign correspondant in Russia for four years before his expulsion in 2011 for writing stories showing Putin in an unfavourable light. He has the enviable skill of giving the reader all the necessary detail in as sharp and concise manner as possible, which makes this taut, pacy and readable. Harding begins this book tracing the movements of the Russian state-approved would be assassins who caused mayhem in Salisbury when they applied a nerve agent to the door handle of the home of a Russian defector in a botched assassination attempt. It's a dramatic starting point for the story of the growing influence of Russia in the rise of populism in America and other countries - the methods may not be so violent, but they are more chillingly effective. Troll farms, disinformation, the malleability and corruptibility of the Trump administration of chancers, and the parallels and overlaps with dodgy Brexit campaigners in the UK, it's all here. Shocking, infuriating and frightening, all the more so for revealing the occasional ineptitude of the Russians alongside their expertise. We know what they did because of their mistakes, and yet, as the partisan impeachment hearings against Trump proved - it doesn't seem to matter to the legislators, as long as interference helps your guy.
August 26, 2020
Absolutely terrifying.
Reads like the stuff of conspiracy nut's wet dreams, alas unfortunately true
There is a tonne of information to take on board but it's one hell of a ride
Reads like the stuff of conspiracy nut's wet dreams, alas unfortunately true
There is a tonne of information to take on board but it's one hell of a ride
August 16, 2020
I always enjoy Luke Hardings good old-fashioned shoe leather reporting combined with his global analysis and zest for telling a good story. I recently reread Collusion and it stands up very well in the years since it was published, he was out pretty early with it and much of the accepted narrative of the Trump Russia scandals are laid out in detial in the pages of that book.
This one is similar as it jumps around the world from London, New York Washington, Kiev, Africa etc. Hardings time in Moscow and his Russianlanguage skills and contacts make him the perfect man for this story. It was good to hear what Christopher Steele has been up to since he became a megastar and his view on the Mueller report - Mueller muffed it. An expansive book of reportage that seeks to get its hands around the various Russian influences playing out around the world right now, and ll the more impressive to learn that Harding has been suffering from Covid 19 badly for six months leading up to the publication of the book, he's one of those people who seem to take forever to get better.
This one is similar as it jumps around the world from London, New York Washington, Kiev, Africa etc. Hardings time in Moscow and his Russianlanguage skills and contacts make him the perfect man for this story. It was good to hear what Christopher Steele has been up to since he became a megastar and his view on the Mueller report - Mueller muffed it. An expansive book of reportage that seeks to get its hands around the various Russian influences playing out around the world right now, and ll the more impressive to learn that Harding has been suffering from Covid 19 badly for six months leading up to the publication of the book, he's one of those people who seem to take forever to get better.
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