The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War

The fall of the Soviet Union took with it one of history’s greatest propaganda machines. Or so we thought. From the front lines of a nation’s political death and rebirth, Arkady Ostrovsky documents a relationship between Russian media and the Kremlin that helps explain the rise of Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and the oligarchs who backed them. The imperial President. The grand Olympics. The expansionist military. So much of what we are seeing of Russia today has been shaped and informed by the 21st century propagandists who walk the halls of the Kremlin and the corridors of media.