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Masha Gessen’s brave new book lifts the lid on Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a time when it is dangerous to criticise the country’s government. As a journalist living in Moscow, Gessen experienced the extraordinary rise of Putin firsthand. She draws on exclusive sources to explain how a low-level member of the KGB rose to become president of one of the most powerful countries in the world. And she tells how he ended years of progress in Russia by seizing control of the media, sending his rivals into exile and concentrating power in the hands of his cronies. Publication of the book coincides with the first signs that the Russian people are beginning to run out of patience with their rulers.

Gessen was born in Russia but moved with her family to the United States in 1981. She returned to Moscow in 1991 where she is the Russian correspondent for US News and World Report. She will be in discussion with Rachel Polonsky, author of Molotov’s Magic Lantern: Uncovering Russia’s Secret History, who lived in Moscow for ten years, coinciding with Vladimir Putin’s first two presidential terms.