Putin's Labyrinth

In 1999, Russian President Boris Yeltsin named Vladimir Putin, an all-but-unknown former KGB officer, as his successor. Putin imposed a discipline on Russia that had been absent since the Soviet Union's collapse, and he ushered in the beginnings of prosperity thanks in large part to a spike in global oil prices. But he also became one of Washington's harshest critics abroad and an autocratic ruler at home whose enemies often met with violent deaths. BusinessWeek (MHP) correspondent Steve LeVine, in this excerpt from his new book, Putin's Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia, unravels some mysteries of the Putin presidency.

The fresh pride that Vladimir Putin instilled in his people bore a resemblance to the feel-good mood that Ronald Reagan inspired in many Americans with a famously successful political slogan. Putin created what a clever Moscow ad man might have marketed as "It's Morning Again in Russia."