I won’t give away any secrets by mentioning that the main point of this book, accompanied by dozens of examples, is that Vladimir Putin is a mass-murdering despot.

As you work way into the book, I believe the reader,like my self, will also come very quickly to that conclusion with the turn of every page of this 335-page paperback. John Sweeney’s book is not a disinterested biography of Vladimir Putin, the eponymous “Killer in the Kremlin”.Panorama's Editor Sandy Smith explained what happened and how the BBC dealt with the incident in a post on the BBC's Editor's Blog.

This brilliant page-turner by a professional and honest journalist has received less attention than it deserves, perhaps because it doesn’t have an index or bibliography.Putin, one might speculate, knew better, and realised that, with every passing month, Ukraine was already gradually and genuinelybecoming post-Soviet , so he simply couldn’t wait any longer.

Ukraine, always in our thoughts today, and John Sweeney gives an insight not only into Putin the man but also hardships faced by frontline war correspondents. Skripal and, even more sinister, at least one completely innocent member of his family (these aren’t merely crimes, but ‘acts of war’ – p. I read this book with Rennie of What's Nonfiction and I think we both found it hard to trust the author unless he was repeating facts we already knew to be true.It was somewhat validating to see that Rennie and I weren't alone in our concern with the lack of citations here. It will give you chills and leave you mortified at the world's response to this dishonourable fascist who rules with a poisonous, iron fist. The “drunken rage” may exist in Sweeney’s imagination and the “might of Russia” that he refers to was non-existent at the time.