Vladimir Putin came to power by destroying the Russian oligarchs, the entrepreneurs who grew rich during Russia's chaotic transition from communism and exercised unseemly influence over the government of Boris Yeltsin. Putin confiscated their companies and used the profits to build the Kremlin's war chest for the invasion of Ukraine. He and his cronies siphoned off billions for themselves.
Drawing on exclusive interviews and explosive new material, in Suing the Kremlin Martin Sixsmith tells the astonishing story of what happened to the men Putin dispossessed. Some were sent to labour camps, forced into exile or murdered. Some attempted to fight back, but with no success.
Yet for the past twenty years, a small, determined team of legal experts based in London has been pursuing Putin and his rogue state through courts across the globe. Acting on behalf of Group Menatep – the holding company founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's wealthiest oligarch – they have set out to reclaim this vast stolen fortune and to prove that even the most powerful men in the world are not beyond the reach of international law.