"Putin, having accidentally received enormous power into his hands, administered it to catastrophic consequences for Russia. And I do not like him, because he does not like people. He can't stand us. He despises us. He believes that we are a mean to him only, a mean to achieve his own personal power goals. Therefore, he can do anything he wishes to us, play with us as he pleases, destroy us if he wishes. For him, we are nobody. And he, having accidentally scrambled to the top, is now a king and a god, whom everybody should worship and fear."
This book was written in 2004 by the journalist Anna Politkovskaja as a testimony of Putin's regime and the many victims of his political system. She analyses four categories of victims by reporting abstracts of interviews, hard historical facts and the political background of their stories. The first victims described in the book are the mothers of the Russian army's soldiers. They see their inquiries on their sons' fate ignored by the government over and over. In the tragic event of their son's death, they are deprived of the right to know the cause and the exact date of death and, sometimes, to even receive the dead body back for a dignified burial. The book moves then to the Russian army and its ruthless hierarchy. There, privates are the victims of officials' will and brutalities and cannot find protection in any institution. In relation to the Russian army, Anna Politkovskaja also describes the soldiers' behaviours during the second Chechen war. In this context, the victims are the Chechen citizens whose lives are destroyed forever by the violence and rapes of drunk and frustrated officials. No juries or martial courts convict them: these corrupted institutions are willing to ignore clear proofs or, depending on the need, issue psychiatric judgements to silence the prosecutors. The last category of victims analyzed by the book is the Russian citizens themselves, who live simple and poor lives far from Moscow. They are victims of rich and powerful men who can bend the rules and situations according to their needs. The Nord-Ost siege at the Dubrovka Theatre in 2002 and the Beslan school siege in 2004 are just the tip of the iceberg of the abuses imposed on Russian citizens and ignored by Putin, when held accountable. The victims' families are left alone, with no moral or economic support, no explanation or justice.
Even if written more than ten years ago, this book deals with current issues spread on two dimensions: international war crimes and national crimes against civilians. Some testimonies could perfectly be confused for journal articles fresh off the press. Today, six months after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, this book had the same effect of a slap in the face and reminded me of how history repeats itself. While reading it, I empathized with all the victims abandoned by the institutions and left to the mercy of a corrupted judicial system, humiliated and incapable of invoking their fundamental rights. I was angry and frustrated together with them. Anna Politkovskaja collected important testimonies and historical information that need to be known and spread. She publicly denounced the Russian army and the Federal Security Service (FSB). During the same years, she also fought for the human rights of minorities. On the 7th of October 2006, she was shot dead in the lift in her block of flats in Moscow. The instigator of the murder is still unknown today.