Owen Matthews Owen Matthews

Nothing is certain in Russia, where the past is constantly rewritten

Nowhere else in the modern world has seen history so vehemently twisted to justify aggression and repression as Putin’s Russia

Vladimir Putin, photographed this week at Novo-Ogaryovo, his official residence in Moscow. [Getty Images]
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  • Russia – Myths and Realities: The History of a Country With an Unpredictable Past

    Rodric Braithwaite

    Profile, pp. 224, £16

  • The Shortest History of the Soviet Union

    Sheila Fitzpatrick

    Old Street, pp. 256, £12

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