Author(s): Irina Borogan, Andrei Soldatov

Contemporary Non-Fiction

Fleeing pogroms, tsarist persecution, the Revolution, then Stalin and the KGB, Russian émigrés have created the third-largest diaspora in the world. The exodus created a rare opportunity for the Kremlin: since the late nineteenth century, Moscow's spymasters have fostered networks of spies worldwide, many of whom were emigrants driven from Russia. During the last several decades, Russian émigrés turned into assets of the resurgent Russian nationalist state, while others took up the dissident challenge once more-at their personal peril. From Trotsky to Litvinenko, The Compatriots is the gripping history of Russian score-setting around the world. With the recent war in Ukraine and Putin's fervent crackdown on opposition leaders, political dissidents, and journalists, the authors have become émigrés themselves, exiled from their own country. Book jacket.