Book review: We Need to Talk About Putin, by Mark Galeotti

The Western media present an image of Vladimir Putin that makes him seem like a Bond villain, an evil genius who is playing with the fate of the world. In this dynamic, authoritative and often witty book, Mark Galeotti deftly defuses this myth. He takes everything we pride ourselves on knowing about Putin – that he’s from Leningrad (now St Petersburg once more), that he’s a Black Belt judoka, that he was a KGB officer in Germany who became director of its successor service, the FSB, that he’s very wealthy – and gets us to look behind each of these slim pieces of knowledge.