This was one of my most favorite reads and interviews of late. Andrew Weiss and Brian “Box” Brown lay out a great narrative about Vladimir Putin.  From his humble beginnings as a wanna be spy in Dresden to a family consultant for President Yeltsin to a feared nuclear bomb toting dictator,  Weiss and Brown literally paint a graphic picture of Vladimir Putin.

The graphics drawn by Mr. Brown, showing President Putin as a devious cartoon villain  are very droll and really convey sort of the seriousness and absurdity of this man.

Mr. Weiss is brilliant in his summation and narrative of Putin who seems to inhabit every crevice of the Western foreign policy mind. As he so aptly points out “Make no mistake the World definitely has a big Russia problem to confront. But seeing Putin as he wants us to see, rather than as he is, only makes that problem worse.”

I would reccommend this book for almost any age beginning from late grade school on..it is a serious subject and an illuminating read.

Throughout, the interview Andrew’s answers were very clear and no nonsense. He managed to unscramble some of the Western media silliness that I had picked up following the Ukraine invasion of Russian. As a leading authority on Putin and Russia, Mr Weiss uses his experience in a fun way to educate us on the seriousness of a world leader who now threatens the territorial integrity of Europe and the stability of the West.