Anna Arutunyan

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH RUSSIA’S 21ST CENTURY TSAR Vladimir V. Putin has confounded world leaders and defied their assumptions as they tried to figure him out, only to misjudge him time and again. The Putin Mystique takes the reader on a journey through the Russia of Vladimir Putin, named by Forbes magazine in 2013 as the most powerful man in the world. It is a neo-feudal world where iPads, WTO membership, and Brioni business suits conceal a power structure straight out of the Middle Ages, where the Sovereign is perceived as both divine and demonic, where a man’s riches are determined by his proximity to the Kremlin, and where large swathes of the populace live in precarious complacency interrupted by bouts of revolt. Where does that kind of power come from? The answer lies not in the leader, but in the people: from the impoverished worker who appeals directly to Putin for aid, to the businessmen, security officers and officials in Putin’s often dysfunctional government who look to their leader for instruction and protection. In her writing career, Anna Arutunyan has traveled throughout Russia to report on modern Russian politics. She has interviewed oligarchs and policemen, bishops and politicians, and many ordinary Russians. Her book is a vivid and revealing exploration of the way in which myth, power, and even religion interact to produce the love-hate relationship between the Russian people and Vladimir Putin.

Inside Russia's Power Cult

The Putin Mystique

The Russian government’s deniable use of rogues, businessmen, enthusiasts, mercenaries and political technologists confounded policymakers as Moscow waged a covert invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Did Crimea and Donbas reveal the Kremlin’s new ‘hybrid war’ playbook? Or was Moscow itself manipulated by the very forces it had unleashed? Given the disinformation and skewing of the narrative, it is no wonder that the international community has dramatically misunderstood the very nature of this war and was unprepared for the Kremlin’s sudden and brutal escalation in 2022. As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine risks pitting the world’s great powers against each other, Hybrid Warriors traces the trajectory of the conflict from the bottom up. Starting from the first pivotal years in the 2010s, the book draws on unique interviews, reporting from the conflict zones, and wider on-the-ground research, to reconstruct the granular relationships between civilians, non-state actors, and the Kremlin that co-opted them. In the process, it speaks not just to the history of this conflict, but also to our wider understanding of how Putin’s Kremlin works and how it has prosecuted its war on Ukraine.

Proxies, Freelancers and Moscow's Struggle for Ukraine

Hybrid Warriors

Andrey Makarychev

Alexandra Yatsyk

Nina Rozhanovskaya

Natalia Moussienko

Oleksiy Krysenko

Sergey Sukhankin

Oleksandr Potiekhin

Maryna Bessonova

Victoria Zhuravleva

Roman Abramov

Valentyna Kharkhun

Kateryna Smagliy

Russian and Ukrainian Debates on Culture, History, and Politics

Identity Clashes

Vladimir Shlapentokh

Demonstrates how the emergence of private property and a market economy after the Soviet Union's collapse enabled a degree of freedom while simultaneously supporting authoritarianism.

Freedom, Repression, and Private Property in Russia

This book introduces readers to the Russian media, its current landscape, and its history by outlining the chief challenges faced by Russian journalists on their quest for media freedom. Focusing on how the Government has traditionally controlled the media through censorship, financial involvement, and relations between media moguls and the State, the book analyses to what extent the Russian media has become 'free' since the fall of Communism. The author questions whether freedom is possible at all in a society where the media has traditionally been so closely linked to the State. There are chapters on different forms of media including print, television, radio and the Internet. Each chapter identifies the main hurdles faced by the particular medium and considers the potential it has for becoming truly independent. Key features include: Vivid examples and case studies of the power play between television and the State during the tumultuous 1990s Clear outline of various different forms of media Comprehensive historical overview supported with examples from relevant publications Drawing on her own experience as a professional journalist, the author, provides a first hand account of what journalists in Russia are encountering today. This position allows the author to frankly discuss the tangible issues that impact those involved in the media and their audiences. By providing both a description of the current situation and an overview of Russian media history, The Media in Russia offers a unique introduction to the field and is key reading for students across various disciplines including Russian studies, media studies and politics.

EBOOK: The Media In Russia

A vivid and revealing exploration of the way in which myth, power and religion interact to produce the love-hate relationship between the Russian people and Vladimir Putin.

Putin Mystique

Hvordan kan det være at Rusland altid ender med en tsar, uanset om de har enevælde, kommunisme eller demokrati? Hvad enten den stærke mand så hedder Ivan den Grusomme, Josef Stalin eller Vladimir Putin? Mystikken om Putin er en aktuel og kontroversiel bog af den russisk/amerikanske journalist Anna Arutunyan, der har arbejdet som politisk korrespondent fra Moskva igennem ti år. Anna Arutunyan viser at det velkendte spørgsmål "Hvem er Putin?" i virkeligheden er et trickspørgsmål: for at forstå Putin må man forstå den russiske mentalitet, der har tilladt Putin at blive, den han er. Anna Arutunyan dykker ned i Ruslands mørkeste hjerte, og fortæller en historie, som nok ikke kommer til at vække glæde hos magthaverne, men som til gengæld er øjenåbnende nyt for alle os, der betragter "Bjørnen i Øst" med lige dele undren og bekymring, hver gang der rasles med sablerne.

Mystikken om Putin

This study demonstrates how the emergence of private property and a market economy after the Soviet Union's collapse enabled a degree of freedom while simultaneously supporting authoritarianism. Based on case studies, Vladimir Shlapentokh and Anna Arutunyan analyze how private property and free markets spawn feudal elements in society. These elements are so strong in post-Communist Russia that they prevent the formation of a true democratic society, while making it impossible to return to totalitarianism. The authors describe the resulting Russian society as having three types of social organization: authoritarian, feudal and liberal. The authors examine the adaptation of Soviet-era institutions like security forces, the police and the army to free market conditions and how they generated corruption; the belief that the KGB was relatively free from corruption; how large property holdings merge with power and necessitate repression; and how property relations affect government management and suppression.

Anna Arutunyan

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