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"The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB"

By Rich Fisher

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kwgs/local-kwgs-937308.mp3

Tulsa, Oklahoma – On today's show, an interesting discussion with Moscow-based journalist Andrei Soldatov, who's the co-author of a widely acclaimed new book called "The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB." (For more about Soldatov and his work as a journalist, visit the website Agentura.Ru.) "The New Nobility" takes a careful and courageously up-close look at the Russian Federal Security Service (or FSB), especially its actions and agents from the Vladimir Putin era onward. As the UK's Sunday Times (UK) has noted: "This compelling book [draws] on considerable research [as] it describes how the KGB, for decades at the violent vanguard of the communist dictatorship, switched effortlessly after the fall of the Soviet Union, preserving the stability of the new, ultra-capitalist Kremlin; same people, many of the same methods, different name and economic system." And consider also the following, which comes from The Wall Street Journal: "Few people are better placed than [co-authors] Soldatov [and] Borogan to write with authority on this subject. They run the website Agentura.Ru, a magpie's nest of news and analysis that presents a well-informed view of the inner-workings of this secret state. Given the fates that have befallen other investigative journalists in Russia in recent years, some might fear for the authors' safety. But the publication of the 'The New Nobility' in English is welcome; it should be essential reading for those who hold naive hopes about Russia's development or who pooh-pooh the fears of its neighbors."