Andrew S. Weiss
Event information
Andrew S. Weiss
Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Demystifying Vladimir Putin
DATE: November 29, 2022 6:00 pm
LOCATION: World Trade Center, Baltimore
As Russia withdrew its troops from Kherson November 11, the man who ordered the war — and annexed that very region weeks earlier — went silent. Vladimir Putin has cast himself as a man of power who’s cool under fire, but he left it to his military to declare the retreat.
Can he get away with it? And how did he get to where he is?
Andrew Weiss, one of the most astute Russia analysts in the U.S., demystifies the long-serving autocrat in a new book, Accidental Czar: the Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin. This is a graphic novel in form, an authoritative biography in content. It was published this month.
This is the story of a middle-ranking intelligence operative with a thin resume who rises to power through corrupt wheeling-dealing in St. Petersburg. He works his way into the inner circle of failed reformer Boris Yeltsin. The images are memorable: There’s Putin, the street thug, cornering a rat in a St. Petersburg apartment only to have the rat attack him; Putin at the door of the KGB begging in vain for a job; Putin claiming he single handedly held off a mob in East Germany in 1989 when all he did was call the Russian army for help.
Andrew Weiss has worked as a specialist on Russia in both Republican and Democratic administrations, serving at the White House National Security Council, the State Department and the Pentagon. He’s now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
He will speak on the theme ‘Demystifying Putin”.
Background
Andrew S. Weiss
James Family Chair & vice president for studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Author of Accidental Czar: the Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin
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Accidental Czar: the Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin
“This riveting graphic novel biography chronicles Vladimir Putin’s rise from a mid-level KGB officer to the autocratic leader of Russia and reveals the truth behind the strongman persona he has spent his career cultivating.
In the West’s collective imagination, Vladimir Putin is a devious cartoon villain, constantly plotting and scheming to destroy his enemies around the globe and in Ukraine. But how did an undistinguished mid-level KGB officer become one of the most powerful leaders in Russian history? And how much of Putin’s tough-guy persona is a calculated performance?
In Accidental Czar, Andrew S. Weiss, a former White House Russia expert, and Brian “Box” Brown show how Putin has successfully cast himself as a cunning, larger-than-life political mastermind—and how the rest of the world has played into the Kremlin’s hands by treating him as one. They shatter all of these myths and expose the man behind the façade.”
Praises for Accidental Czar:
“Accidental Czar is an absorbing and visually stunning account of Vladimir Putin’s rise and take-no-prisoners approach to wielding power on the world stage. Andrew S. Weiss and Brian Brown have made one of the most consequential stories of our time more accessible and engaging for readers of all backgrounds. I would urge anyone who wants to better understand the forces shaping modern Russia, and disrupting our world, to open up this extraordinary book.” —Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
“Vladimir Putin has often presented himself as a cartoonish image of a strongman, so it is brilliantly fitting that Accidental Czar uses the graphic form to tell the true story behind the caricature Putin has spent the last two decades cultivating. Bravo!” —Susan B. Glasser, staff writer at the New Yorker, former Washington Post bureau chief in Moscow, and co-author of Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution
To purchase his book, visit https://us.macmillan.com/books /9781250760753/accidentalczar
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