Killer in the Kremlin: The instant bestseller - a gripping and explosive account of Vladimir Putin's tyranny

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John Sweeney is a distinguished award winning investigative journalist, working in the past for many news outlets including BBC’s Panorama and Newsnight as well as Channel 4’s Dispatches. He has reported fearlessly from Chechnya and Ukraine and witnessed scenes that no-one should see. A gripping and explosive account of Vladimir Putin's tyranny, charting his rise from spy to tsar, exposing the events that led to his invasion of Ukraine and his assault on Europe. This brings us to another Russian whose career was brought to a premature end. Boris Nemtsov was shot dead late at night while walking near the Kremlin. His death made a striking impression on Sweeney: “Nemtsov was an extraordinary man, the sweetest, funniest and most human Russian I’ve ever met. His brutal snuffing out caused me to sink into a profound depression.” Shchekochikhin’s girlfriend Alyona Gromova recalled: “On the day he was taken to hospital, he felt very weak. After he had a shower, his hair was a mess. I went to stroke it and great handfuls of hair came out in my hand. The symptoms were confusing. First, it seemed like a cold but his face was very red, as if he had sunburn, then lumps of his skin started to flake off.” In Killer in the Kremlin , award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes readers from the heart of Putin's Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine.

If you study Putin’s career, you realise that we are dealing with a hyper-aggressive psychopath whose word cannot be relied upon. He is a man who identifies compromise as weakness; who sows dissent and mistrust in the West; who likes killing. The idea that we can negotiate with Putin is foolish. Nobody in the West will be safe until he and his killing machine are stopped. Period.In his book Sweeney moves methodically through the violence in Russian recent history where he sees Putin’s prints on them all. He gives oxygen to multiple conspiracies about Putin’s wealth, mental state, personal health and sexual interests. The book is infused with anecdotes of Sweeney's own, which add a lot of kudos to the conclusions he draws. It also starts and finishes in Ukraine, where Sweeney based himself for 3 months of the start of the War, with the observations from that time well presented and documented. Her lover was so unrecognisable that Alyona could not find him in the morgue until the supervisor pointed out his name tag to her. This was in 2003. The poisonings and the shootings had only just begun. Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya? Poisoned, later shot. Human rights activist Natasha Estemirova? Shot. Politician Boris Nemtsov? Shot. Opposition leader Alexey Navalny? Poisoned, now in jail.

Sweeney may be correct in suggesting that Putin has been an expert conman and that his victims included former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, UK prime minister Tony Blair and the billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Despite his extremely unsavoury reputation, Berezovsky was given asylum in London, having become one of Putin’s enemies. The phrase “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” comes to mind. Dealing with someone as secretive and reviled as Putin, it is tempting for his enemies to believe any speculation suggesting he may be ill. But isn’t there a danger that journalists give too much credence to rumours, yearning for them to be true rather than proving it? I am a student of the causes of WW1. One thing I am certain of is that if the Kaiser, the Emperor, the Tsar and the Caliphate knew where they would be five years hence from 2014, they would have done their utmost to have stopped that war from starting. I wonder if Putin will be in a similar situation. Once you start a war you never know where it will take you. History teaches us so many things, if only people would listen. We’re currently going through the last days of an insecure dictator, whose birth and upbringing are shrouded in mystery but certainly tainted his view of the world.He plans to return to Ukraine next month. For now he is enjoying his break with friends and family. He is no longer married but is “still pals” with his ex-wife, and is glad of a chance to see his children. It’s been great chatting but now he has to dash for an urgent appointment: an Umbrian wine tasting.

His bold approach has also got him into plenty of scrapes. There was the 2007 Scientology investigation in which he spectacularly lost his temper (bellowing so loudly at a church spokesperson that he resembled, in his own words, an “exploding tomato”). Donald Trump accused him of having a “ lousy reputation” after walking out of an interview in 2013. The same year, he got into a row with the London School of Economics after using a student trip arranged by his then-wife to enter North Korea undercover (the BBC admitted breaches of editorial guidelines, but Sweeney stood by his methods, saying “North Korea is not Torremolinos”). This book delves into Putin’s soul, it questions his birthright and sexual preferences, it looks at his close links with organised crime and how he has become so wealthy, it delves into his relationships with corrupt business leaders and politicians including ex-Presidents and how he has manipulated the Russian economy for his own benefit. It gives many detailed examples of his vindictive and controlling methods and how any criticism has put people’s live at risk. From this book it is impossible to estimate how many lost lives Putin has been responsible for, but the lists of those who were once close and have died in mysterious circumstances is extraordinary. Though the book can at times feel too personal and he does portray himself as a lad journalist against the world (this was in no part helped by the books narrator who injected the reading with the bravado of a nuts magazine editor). the Amnesty International prize for "Victims of the Torture Train," about human rights abuses in Chechnya.

In his committee grilling this month, Johnson did not reveal what he discussed with Alexander Lebedev. But their 2018 meeting was only weeks after the Salisbury poisonings – when Russian agents attempted to murder a former agent with the nerve agent Novichok and ended up killing a British woman, Dawn Sturgess – and shortly after a Nato meeting to determine the West’s response. If Sweeney could “doorstep” Johnson and ambush him with an unexpected interview, what would he most like to ask? He travelled there again in April 2018. Foreign Secretary at the time, Johnson was later photographed on his way home “ looking like he had slept in his clothes”. Evgeny Lebedev and Boris Johnson at one of their earliest meetings, at the Royal Opera House in London in 2009 (Photo: Dave M. Benett/Getty)