British reporter John Sweeney has been captivated by the figure of Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, for over twenty years. Despite being an unlikely choice for a muse, Putin’s journey from a KGB operative to a tyrant is a tale Sweeney has been compelled to narrate.
Sweeney was the inaugural author to brand Putin a war criminal back in 2000 in the Observer. His book published in 2022, ‘Killer in the Kremlin’, sketches the ascent of Putin and delves into the life of Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption advocate. Navalny, who was once but a minor annoyance to Putin, ascended to become his most formidable rival, culminating in his untimely demise in February 2024 in Russia’s IK-3 “special regime” Polar Wolf colony.
Navalny’s bravery against Putin’s rule and his captivating persona are central to Sweeney’s narration, with Sweeney even admitting to feeling like a “teenage groupie” around the charismatic leader. Sweeney analyses Navalny’s choice to return to Russia post surviving a poisoning incident in 2020, a testament to his steadfast dedication to topple Putin, which he believed he couldn’t accomplish from exile.
Sweeney has also penned ‘I Will Show You How It Was’, a stark reminder of Ukraine’s dire potential future, and reminisces in short story form with ‘Remembered from the Principia’ by Lisa McInerney. His writings reflect Orwell’s impact as ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ turns 75, along with a delightful travel novel ‘Welcome to Glorious Tuga’ exploring themes of belonging and identity.
Sweeney does not hold back when addressing Navalny’s “troublesome dalliance” with the extreme right, including openly racist videos produced during the early days of his political journey. The author contends that despite the films being an undeniable error, they were Navalny’s miscalculated effort to compel Russia’s nationalist right-wing to “redirect their radicalism towards backing his anti-corruption crusade”. Furthermore, Sweeney argues that these poorly judged videos may have cost Navalny the Nobel Peace Prize, and consequently, his life. As the argument goes, Putin may have hesitated to attack a Nobel laureate.
In an enthralling yet grim account, Sweeney offers an express tutorial on recent developments in Russian history, exudes a youthful passion for belittling Putin and his accomplices, and provides a truly terrifying portrayal of challenging the grip Putin has on power in Russia. “It’s a challenge to verify information in Russia,” Sweeney cautions early in the piece, “because complete and accurate fact-checking can lead to one’s demise.”