PUTIN’S PEOPLE
By Catherine Belton
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020
500 pages of text, 32 illustrations, 96 pages of defining notes, 35.00 USD
Reviewed by Ben Robinson
In 1990 two things happened on Earth. The Gorbachev 80’s came to a crashing halt, and Donald Trump was visited by Russian gangsters who partied with him at 3am in Atlantic City at his Taj Mahal casino which he claimed to spend over one billion dollars on. Apparently the NJ Gaming Commission was therefore completely surprised when this self-styled billionaire (he wasn’t), was suddenly facing bankruptcy and many violations for not reporting transactions by one person for more than $10,000 in one 24-hour period. Russian pop stars filled the gaudy Taj halls with people who’d spend $100,000 in less than a weekend. Don’s place became the place to party with oligarchs looking to spend a weekend sacrificing virgins with no questions asked about the dead fourteen-year-old in the tight dress in a dumpster. “What do you care? She was a hooker!” those arrested and then let go were heard to say. Welcome to Trump nightlife 90’s style. The Russian lock step to dominating America was only beginning with murdered teen hookers.
What do you know? Birds of a feather do flock together, and no, there is no honor among thieves. Donald Trump over-spent, went under and then stood defiantly before the NJ Gaming Commission and threatened to “put 2500 people on the streets tomorrow if you don’t give me time, restructure my debt and eat part of what you say I owe.” Sound familiar? He screws up and it is everyone else’s fault and responsibility. And that was in 1990! Uh, oh—what is past is prologue.
So, Trump gets in deep with the guys from Little Odessa (that’s NYPD slang for Brighton Beach, Brooklyn). Lot of toughies come out of there. Hell, they even make Law & Order SVU episodes about people down there that traffic girls from the Ukraine and later sand their faces off. One such character became an informant for the FBI and seemingly kept very good records of his old school mate, Vladimir Putin. (By the way, that informant, he did ten years for kidnapping, assault and drug trafficking—helluva guy. When he went to work for the Feds, his payment was a reduced sentence.)
Putin, everyone’s favorite KGB operative, formerly the East German Stasi liaison from the 80’s when he had more hair, is well documented since before his ass was kicked in a judo fight where his opponent broke his nose. Putin is a man of pride, unyielding patriotism, and can duly be called a hero. A real hero. He saved Russia, over and over. First from Communism. Then the oligarchs he put in jail in Siberia all kowtow to his black ops badassness because, well, Ms. Belton describes his world as “the Kremlin KGB brand of capitalism.” Late in the book, they all break down and claim Russian sovereignty is actually their right in the world. You could have seen that coming from the vast pipelines of Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas giant run by people drunk on power. Tough life when a billion just ain’t what it used to be.
It gets better. Shell companies all over the world in some very attractive places: London, Paris, Geneva, New York—the fun gets rolling when the Bank of New York somehow just doesn’t remember to find out who is investing money or what their business is. Some businesses called themselves “FL Securities” for being based in Florida, and whadya know…that was good enough to open an account with all those perks “little people who pay taxes” (to quote billionaire Leona Helmsley) know nothing about because their checking balance is just shy of the three billion needed for a checking account without penalty. Forget the free toaster, Russian cash flows like the world’s oceans are connected; silently, without dispatch nor anyone else looking too closely at the gift that keeps on giving.
“Why sure Mr. Kalashnikov, I’ll take your seven billion dollars. So, you need a good restaurant tip tonight? I hear the blintzes at Veselka remind you of the homeland.” The leatherneck gangsters smiled, dropped off their seven large and that money was then used for “military intelligence compartmentalized operations.” Black cash. Thomas Harris could not have written this story better of international shadow finance and the opposition neatly disposed of through a gunning down blocks from the Kremlin, or those that suddenly commit suicide. This is a thirty-year war we witness and suffer from the book’s subtitle: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West. That the EU and NATO severely underestimated Russia returning with less than a limp after the Cold War and after the disintegration of the Soviet Federation is one for the “You think we should have looked at this a bit more closely?” file. Joe Biden seems to step up with a warning about all of this sometime in 2005, but American and British intelligence don’t seem to come on board with Russia’s campaign to world dominance until shortly after 2010. What was that about the world moving slowly, but it moves? “Which direction?” is what most people ask, and in Putin’s People, the answer is clear—as Putin and his KGB cohorts see it, you are either with them or against them. It is an organized crime state of mind.
Donald Trump Jr. makes an appearance and somehow forgets that when one runs for President of the United States that overtures from foreign powers is a campaign infraction, much less Trump campaign officials and managers not realizing that not registering as a foreign agent is illegal. But Trump’s children (Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka) have wildlife to slay and mount on their walls and tariff-free brands to pursue, so why bother with all those silly little campaign finance laws, “after all, it’s Daddy we’re supporting!”
“Damn the aeroramps” Macbeth mentioned and so it is for these “leaders” in Putin’s People who lead with greed, graft, murder and malfeasance. Life is cheap and murder is just like filing up your car; you go further with a little jolt of new energy; even if you have to knock off the head of an energy company. Only those that make, and in some cases, buy into, the myths created by the Kremlin, survive. For now.
In 1989 Gorbachev ran to seclusion prompting The New York Times to publish a front page story titled “Gorbachev as Houdini.” If Putin escapes the global pandemic, he gets the vote for baddest bad guy. Of course, six months into this pandemic Putin has a vaccine. Forget that it isn’t tested, he has a vaccine! This pretty well sums up Russian efficiency; long on boast, short on aid to others. But then again, empathy for the common man wasn’t how Russia was built. Putin’s People makes the case that Russia was always a tsarist land and always would be; it was the way Russians liked it. And when it comes to Putin’s People, if you don’t like it, they’ll direct you to a gulag where your face will be sanded off.
In the text Ms. Belton quotes Russian operatives mentioning that Americans only care about money and anyone can be bought. So much for a moral society. The dumbing down of America since WWII has been the breeding ground for Russia’s heretofore unexamined march to clobber the West with a new economy and prove that democracy is a quaint idea left over from the 18th century. It should noted that Hedrick Smith’s The Russians (1980) well sets the stage for this tome’s ripsaw episodes.
And woe is the poor chump who disagrees with Putin and his men; not toeing the party line in the name of the state is justification for death, dishonor and the need for a quick getaway from Mother Russia. Anyone know a good plastic surgeon who can provide a new face? Some of the characters in this book have the cash and the need for it. One day they are the richest in all of Russia, the next, they are on the outs with Putin, referred to as “number one” and “Papa” by those that believe his myth. Belton somewhat explodes Putin’s calm demeanor with many descriptions of his impatience and rage. What is termed his “closed door panic” seems to this reader to be the military mastermind hibernating looking for a solution to the apartment bombings in Moscow. Such is neatly laid at the door of Chechen terrorists, rather than the state-sponsored assassinations later leaving more than 117 dead and hundreds injured from the gas attack on a school. This showed the first chink in Putin’s armor. Putin, like his protege Trump, is never at fault—in this case the dog didn’t eat his homework, there was never a need of due process; that’s a waste of time, right? Is this America I refer to; or, Russia? Seems murky (to quote Belton), at best. To Putin and his people, the world is one large oyster bar and the owner is the KGB Kremiln with their distaste for being questioned or opposed. The Russian Bear bites with Grizzly Steppe (read The Mueller Report).
Border countries to Russia are not forgotten in the text. The situation with the Ukraine will make heads spin, because just when you think there is a champion of justice on page 113, you are again disappointed to learn the fix was in a few pages later and the good guys were in bed with the bad guys; another lost hope of decency. The “black cash” repeatedly referred to in this detailed book washes through Earth like a disease of consumer culture. The Russian middle class emerges disregarding totalitarianism for a new car, a decent current computer and if the technology is stolen and they did not have to pay for it—so much the better! Russia first at any cost is the not-too-hidden message of this book.
The 2016 US Presidential election is the finale of this masterful work, and darn it if that statement by Shakespeare didn’t just come bite you outright. All of a sudden it is 2014 and metal merchant billionaires are sidling up to Donald Trump. Before you know it, they’ve got him on tape in hotel rooms at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow looking like the cat that just ate the canary. Those canaries names were Katrina and Svetlana, nuff sed, wink, wink, nudge nudge…what do you expect from a man who reads (if at all) at a fourth grade level?
So, there is a paper trail. It turns out the Mueller investigation was impeded to stay away from Russian finance. But, Mr. Trump finds himself a wannabe Hitler puppet in a world conspiring to flaunt a 21st century brand of fascism including politicians in: Russia, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Syria and let’s not forget that chap with the hair cut in North Korea.
The good news: they’re all in on it. The bad news: they’re all in on it. So we have Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen fearing he will end up like Jeffery Epstein. Who, by the way, left behind some incredibly well organized digital files currently in the hands of INTERPOL, the FBI, the NYPD and other assorted unmentionable caches of need-to-know and those wondering where they will now run? Bill Clinton in a dress is a painting found in Epstein’s mansion, and all New Yorkers wonder is why it wasn’t Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, who proudly shuffled his mascara and wobbly bustle over to the Junior League one Summer night, and then reminded the thousand accomplished women he addressed that his hips were not what they used to be. You could hear the wretching in the audience.
Rudy Giuliani is Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and has been monkeying around with a shadow foreign policy of the Gambino crime family since the 1980’s. He put away the goombahs as a US Attorney and special prosecutor. Giuliani regularly brags to New York tabloids that he “will not go down with Trump because I have an insurance policy.” Hmmmn, what could the former New York Mayor have on the former New York (he changed residences to Florida) real estate developer? Might it be that Donald Trump has been in heavy with the Russian mafia, names of which bear omertà, yet, I’m betting Rudy also has as tidy records as Mr. Epstein (who apparently hanged himself in a secure facility in New York City).
And where does this leave our title hero at the end of the book? Well, Vladimir Putin has been on the job in Russia since 2000 and while his aims might have been valiant, he seems like a guy that would cheat at cards and think that we should let him. You see, in the world of totalitarianism, or what he and his “men” refer to as “the strong state of controlled democracy” which is their translation for closing down elections, picking local ministers and being able to yank anyone and throw them in jail because the KGB-controlled Kremlin threw away the rule book of law long ago. If you do not see it their way like the former FSB operative Alexander Litvinenko, you’ll end up like him with some exotic poison in your afternoon tea. No joke! They did it to a guy who criticized Putin widely —“the opposition daring to speak”— and he was detained until he was so sick someone from Germany sent him a plane to see if they could help him in Berlin. That was August 2020.
So, totalitarianism seems to have had its day the author concludes. Yet the evidence is that the damage done will last longer than anyone wishes. Freedom is simple. That is what totalitarians fear. Especially because they cannot make any cash out of it.
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Putin totally owns Russia - on the warpath with the West
A very long, well-researched, but readable book. I learned is that the 100+ Russian oligarchs might own most of the wealth of Russia, but they do not run the country. The country is run by Putin and his fellow KGB veterans who control the State, the security services, law enforcement, the court system, the banks, the media, the military, and the oligarchs. The Ill-gotten wealth of the oligarchs is transferred to the West (London, New York, Florida, Panama, Switzerland, Israel, UAE, and various offshore British islands where it disappears into hidden bank accounts, investment deals, and real estate), but it is always subject to the demands of Putin to aid him in the subversion of democratic states. His form of state capitalism is immensely facilitated by the greed of Western bankers, businessmen, and politicians who gobble up as much money as they can. The United States does not require the source of money for real estate investments to be identified. At least three times Donald Trump was saved from bankruptcy by Russian agents of influence and oligarchs positioned around him. They gave him naming deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars for which he never fronted any of his own money. Putin used oligarchs' money to buy influence into Berlusconi's Italy, French fascists, British Conservatives, Austrian right-wingers, and Donald Trump-aligned front groups. Many countries sell citizenship and or residency for fees or real estate investments that exceed $2 million. With citizenship comes a UK, US, Israeli, or EU passport that allows them to legally open bank accounts and donate to political parties. Those oligarchs that are Jewish can immediately gain Israeli citizenship and avoid revealing the sources of their wealth for ten years. This immense, secretive, corrupt, and oppressive system meshes the power of the state, the wealth of the oligarchs, and the muscle of Russian organized crime. It is a monster that must be shut down. Putin’s unprovoked war on Ukraine has brought this cancer to the surface. In our zeal to defeat Putin and cleansed this corrupt cancer from us, we must also face the corruption that is within us and thrives from billions of his dollars flowing into our banks, tax havens, and real estate.
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