Punishing Putin

'The essential, must-read insider account of the West’s cat and mouse economic warfare against Russia and how it is changing the face of global trade. Magisterial and gripping’ Catherine Belton

‘A brilliant, engagingly written and timely book’ Owen Matthews
Undeterred by eight years of timid US sanctions, Vladimir Putin ordered his full-scale assault on Ukraine on 24 February 2022. In the hours that followed, Western leaders weaponized economic tools in a world-changing financial experiment. The goal was to sap the strength of Putin’s war machine by damaging its economy, without risking a global recession in the process.

In Punishing Putin, veteran journalist Stephanie Baker uncovers how this furious financial war has unfolded, from seizing superyachts to manipulating the global price of oil to blocking the sale of military technology. Baker reveals how the West mobilized an army of white-collar-crime investigators to crack down on illicit Russian money, targeting oligarchs and their enablers for sanctions evasion.

Filled with propulsive, fly-on-the-wall details, Punishing Putin takes us into the frantic backroom deliberations that led to a whole new era of economic statecraft and radically rearranged global alliances, influencing world order for generations to come.

‘The riveting inside story of the unprecedented economic war to take down Putin and save Ukraine. Anyone wishing to understand the complexity and difficulty of battling Putin on the global economic stage will find Baker’s exposé an essential read.’ – Bill Browder, bestselling author of Red Notice and Freezing Order

‘An authoritative and gripping investigation that reads like a detective novel. I found myself reading it in the elevator.’ – Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan

‘A compelling account of the West’s economic war against Russia, from oligarchs’ superyachts to the world’s oil market … Essential reading for understanding Russia’s war and how it is remaking the world economy.’ – Chris Miller, bestselling author of Chip War

‘Deeply reported and deftly written, Punishing Putin brings you inside a critical front in the new cold war … No one writing about sanctions today has a stronger grasp of this terrain than Baker or a better knack for untangling its complexity.’ – Simon Shuster, bestselling author of The Showman: Inside the Invasion that Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky

‘A captivating economic detective story that describes in great detail how the West tried to confront Putin and explains why the sanctions didn’t work: the war didn’t stop, and the Russian army continues to advance. A very important book for anyone pondering what will happen next.’ – Mikhail Zygar, author of War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

‘Few reporters understand post-Soviet Russia the way Baker does. She has produced a definitive account of the war behind the war – the desperate struggle to restrain Russia's violence through economic sanctions.’ – Peter S. Canellos, author of The Great Dissenter

Stephanie Baker is an award-winning journalist and Senior Writer on the investigations team at Bloomberg, and has been writing about the Russian invasion of Ukraine since February 2022. Stephanie has chronicled the rise and fall of Russian billionaires and has written extensively about sanctions placed on Russia since 2018. She lived in Moscow during the mid-1990s, reporting on the economic transformation of Russia for The Moscow Times, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Bloomberg. Stephanie has appeared regularly on BBC TV and Radio, Bloomberg Television, NPR and PBS. Punishing Putin is her first book.

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