Vladimir Putin doesn’t exactly have the cleanest record among world leaders, but a new book, “Putin’s Kleptocracy” by Karen Dawisha discusses how his path to power was engineered by shady Russian oligarchs, particularly Boris Berezovsky, as reported by Business Insider.
Boris Berezovsky, who fled Russia and set up residence in Spain, made a major push to have Vladimir Putin, former KGB head, to succeed Boris Yeltsin. Owen Matthews of the Daily Beast writes that Berezovsky found a “safe pair of hands” in Putin for Russian’s elite. However, once Putin came to power, he wanted to replace the old elite with his own, who would be completely loyal to him.
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However, Putin needed Berezovsky to get where he wanted to be, and traveled to Spain illegally as many as 37 times from 1996 until 2000, with false documents. He eluded passport control to meet with Berezovsky and others associated with organized crime in Russia.
Once Berezovsky discovered he and the other elite were going to be cast aside, in 2005 he called for a revolution in Russia, by violent means, if necessary. Berezovsky was found dead of an apparent suicide in 2013
