'Rodric Braithwaite's Russia is a scholarly yet highly readable gallop through the last 1000 years of Russian history. As befits a distinguished former diplomat, Braithwaite is judiciously opinionated. To understand this tormented nation better - and thereby how Putin came to launch his catastrophic invasion of Ukraine - you can do no better than read this illuminating portrait'
- Jonathan Dimbleby
'A remarkable epic, vividly portrayed'
- Sunday Telegraph
'A heartbreaking and thrilling story of peerless heroism and misery on a barely imaginable scale'
- Simon Sebag Montefiore