As muses go, one could think of more inspiring choices than Russian president Vladimir Putin,. Yet for British journalist John Sweeney, the “tsar of the knout, the cosh and the hypodermic syringe” has proved an irresistible subject for more than two decades.
Sweeney was the first writer to call the Russian leader a war criminal in the Observer in 2000. His 2022 book, Killer in the Kremlin, charts Putin’s rise from KGB agent to despot. Here again, Putin’s shadow looms large, as Sweeney tells the story of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, lawyer and anti-corruption activist who died in Russia’s IK-3 “special regime” Polar Wolf colony on February 16th, 2024.
Navalny grew from an irritating pebble in Putin’s shoe to the biggest threat to his leadership, as evidenced by the 2011 Christmas Eve demonstration in Moscow, which saw up to 120,000 Muscovites brave sub-zero temperatures in what was the biggest demonstration against the government since the fall of the Soviet Union.
What comes across in spades is Navalny’s courage in consistently defying Putin, and his charisma, with even the grizzled Sweeney turning “into a teenage groupie” in Navalny’s presence. He examines Navalny’s decision to return to Russia after recovering from the poison attack in August 2020. This ultimately came down to his unwavering commitment to ousting Putin, which he believed he could not achieve as an exile.
Sweeney doesn’t shy away from Navalny’s “controversial flirtation” with the far right, including overtly racist videos made early in his political career. The writer argues that although the films, while undoubtedly a mistake, were Navalny’s misguided attempt to force Russia’s nationalist right wing to “channel their militancy into support for his battle against corruption”. Even more critically, Sweeney argues that the ill-conceived videos may have cost Navalny the Nobel Peace Prize and thus his life, as Putin may not have dared strike against a Nobel Prize-winner.
In a grimly fascinating read, Sweeney provides a crash course in Russia’s recent history, displays a schoolboy enthusiasm for diminishing Putin and his allies, and provides a genuinely frightening depiction of what it means to challenge the Russian leader’s grasp on power. “It’s hard to check facts in Russia,” Sweeney warns early on, “because if you do it properly, you end up dead.”
