List of Illustrations

1.   Putin at his inauguration ceremony in May 2012 (AFP / Stringer)

2.   Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev (YURI KADOBNOV / Contributor)

3.   Nikolai Patrushev, Security Council secretary and foreign-policy hawk (Alexei Nikolsky / Contributor)

4.   Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s boss and Putin’s multipurpose hard man over many years (TASS / Contributor)

5.   Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Affairs Minister (Mikhail Svetlov / Contributor)

6.   Alexei Kudrin, long-term Finance Minister, friend of Putin and subsequently a permitted critic of official economic policy (Bloomberg / Contributor)

7.   Vladislav Surkov, one-time manipulator of multiparty politics on Putin’s behalf. Now his emissary in eastern Ukraine (Mikhail Klimentyev / Contributor)

8.   Viktor Yanukovych, Ukrainian president until 2014 and a flagrant accumulator of personal wealth through office (Sergei Guneyev / Contributor)

9.   Yevgeni Primakov, failed contender for the Russian presidency in 2000 and an early promoter of ‘multipolarity’ in world affairs (Sergei Guneyev / Contributor)

10. Mikhail Kasyanov, Putin’s earliest prime minister and subsequently one of his fiercest critics (Mikhail Japaridze / Contributor)

11. Boris Nemtsov, unrelenting political enemy of Putin until he was assassinated in 2015 (Epsilon / Contributor)

12. Alexei Navalny, leading current critic of the Putin administration (FREDERICK FLORIN / Contributor)

13. ‘March of Millions’ protest poster, Moscow, June 2012 (Russian Subject Collection, Hoover Institution Archive)

14. Opposition giant puppet model of Putin as footballer for the Party of Scoundrels and Thieves (Russian Subject Collection, Hoover Institution Archive)

15. Navalny on stage at an evening rally in his Moscow mayoral campaign, August 2012 (Russian Subject Collection, Hoover Institution Archive)

16. Pussy Riot release-demand poster, 2012 (Russian Subject Collection, Hoover Institution Archive)