**A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022**
''Anyone wanting to learn more about Putin''s personality, ideas, power...should read this outstanding biography'' Ian Kershaw, author of Personality and Power
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is happening in Ukraine today.
Vladimir Putin has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia.
Yet many Russians continue to support him. Despite western sanctions, the majority have been living better than at any time in the past. By fair means or foul, under Putin''s leadership, Russia has once again become a force to be reckoned with.
Philip Short''s magisterial biography demolishes many of our preconceptions about Putin''s Russia and explores in unprecedented depth the personality
