https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/01/between-two-fires-joshua-yaffa-review

A sparkling analysis shows how Putinism is built from an accumulation of compromise that leads to corruption

The last couple of years have produced a lot of books about Russia. Many, if not most of them, argue that Donald Trump’s election was a plot by Vladimir Putin, and feature a Russian stereotype or three on the jacket – St Basil’s Cathedral, a nesting doll, letters turned round – to make the connection between the two presidents visual. Many cover the same ground, blaming Trump on the Kremlin’s omnipotent and steely-eyed dictator, rather than on any deep currents in American society. This book is not like that.

Joshua Yaffa is a humane, gifted, curious-minded American journalist who has lived and worked in Moscow for the past seven years, many of them as a correspondent for the New Yorker. Between Two Fires is his rich and detailed examination of how Putinism works, about the compromises required by individuals who want to get ahead, and the capricious nature of the system Putin inherited then moulded in his own image.