PUTIN'S TROLLS: On the Frontlines of Russia's Information War Against the World & FREEZING ORDER: : A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath

FREEZING ORDER: : A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
BILL BROWDER
Simon & Schuster
$28.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Following his explosive New York Times bestseller Red Notice, Bill Browder returns with another gripping thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by exposing Putin’s campaign to steal and launder hundreds of billions of dollars and kill anyone who stands in his way.

When Bill Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life’s mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step of that mission was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over. As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discover that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime.

As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of the top lawyers and politicians in America to bring him down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, it was Browder’s campaign to expose Putin’s corruption that prompted Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election.

At once a financial caper, an international adventure, and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order is a stirring morality tale about how one man can take on one of the most ruthless villains in the world—and win.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LOCAL LIBRARY. USE THEIR SERVICES! WE NEED THEM AND THEY NEED US TO SURVIVE.

My Review: In the pantheon of moral crusaders, Bill Browder's the least likely figure I've found to date. He's on a personal and quixotic quest to shut down Putin's money-laundering pipeline to the Western banks who are hiding (it transpires as a result of investigations tied to Browder's own) about a trillion dollars...that is $1 000 000 000 000...for him and his kleptocratic cronies.

And you wonder why the Ukrainian war is still going on...what better way to distract the West and provide his own people with a Cause, Russianness or Russification call it what you will, to rally behind him to fight!

There are laws in numerous Western countries, called collectively "Magnitsky laws," that trace their passage to Browder's jihad against Putin for the crime of ordering the death (in a very nasty way) of Russian clean-government activist and Browder's Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. These financial-crimes laws empower governments to freeze assets owned by people or entities not based in the country doing the freezing's legal jurisdiction.

You can see this would cause someone with a trillion...a trillion!...stolen dollars some little anxiety. It's led to many murders and attempted murders. It's been clearly documented (the book has astoundingly detailed source material citations). It's led to many acts of cybercrime and harassment (see review below) against those trying to stop the actual stealing and killing.

In the end, I am not so much glad that I read this book as I am grateful to it, and to Author Browder, for showing me that people who live in a principled way and advertise their intentions clearly can, and do, effect change for the better.

But honestly, I can not remember a time I've been this furious for this long at the existence and the power wielded by Putin supporters and apologists.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PUTIN'S TROLLS: On the Frontlines of Russia's Information War Against the World
JESSIKKA ARO
Ig Publishing
$18.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this courageous and unflinching book, award-winning journalist Jessikka Aro interweaves her own dramatic story as a target of Russian social media propaganda with accounts from many internationally known critics of the Kremlin, who share their own stories of being targeted by Russia’s multifaceted cyber warfare campaigns. As Jessikka began to investigate the impact of the Kremlin’s troll operations outside of Russia, she learned that private citizens in many other countries were being victimized by Kremlin-designed information campaigns. These actions were frequently conducted through an organized “troll factory” led by Russia’s security and intelligence apparatus, using unregulated social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Many of the disinformation campaigns were centered around the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent occupation of the Crimean Peninsula.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

By the time of my forced departure, I had endured a two-and-a half-year campaign of death threats and libelous news articles. Online hate sites had brainwashed even some of my friends, turning them into enemies. These same sites portrayed me as a criminal, a liar, and mentally ill. Anonymous users suggested various methods of killing myself. One stranger proposed that I hang myself, while another recommended a 'Russian suicide': someone would push me under the metro, but in a manner staged as self-inflicted. A third individual wished that someone would put a “bullet in the whore’s head, Russian style.” Each time I opened my laptop, or glanced at my phone, I was forced to read snuff fantasies about me produced on an assembly-line scale. I was afraid that the psychological violence would at any minute spill out of the internet into the physical world...I had become the target of such vitriol for one reason only: I was a journalist investigating Russian social media information warfare.

It is chilling to read this book in close temporal connection to Bill Browder's unnervingly personal account of the strains and hazards he and his fellow anti-Putin activists underwent in their ongoing campaign against state-committed murders and actions designed to silence opposition to their kleptocratic agenda.

Jessikka Aro was awarded a 2019 International Women of Courage Award by the US State Department. This was rescinded by the administration then in power...could this be because the Russian asset "leading" it was not about to let his friend Little Vladdy Pu-Pu be discommoded by recognition of his thuggishness getting praise from our government? We may never know. Our grandchildren might.

It's enough to gag a maggot.

Anyway, I didn't start this read calm, cool, and collected, but outraged and indignant. None of those emotional realities calmed under the influence of Author Aro's story. It's as infuriating as you can possibly imagine. Then multiply by ten thousand...read Browder's book, too. These are two people, individuals, trying to hold a world "leader" accountable for civil and criminal violations of international law. They've been subjected to horrific amounts of stress and malicious targeted activity. They've never, ever stopped being at the forefront of the anti-Putin infowars, either.

All the respect in the world to both Author Aro and Author Browder. Standing up for years under the onslaught of the troll factory run by a state leader can not have been easy.