“Longtime Trump political advisor”: Ibid.
“a smell of treason”: Nicholas Kristof, “A Smell of Treason in the Air,” The New York Times, March 23, 2017.
“In December, Michael Flynn”: Full transcript, Washington Post, p. 6.
“our inability”: Ibid., p. 2.
PART ONE: THE PRESENT AS PROLOGUE“The war between”: Mark Galeotti, “Putin’s Hydra: Inside Russia’s Intelligence Services,” European Council on Foreign Affairs, ecfr.eu.
CHAPTER 1: ARMS AND THE MAN“As is often the case”: Nikolai Petrov, “How Putin Changed the Balance of Power Among Russia’s Elite,” Moscow Times, April 15, 2016.
“When it comes to President”: Mikhail Fishman, “A Bigger Bludgeon,” Moscow Times, April 14, 2016.
“There are too many”: Pete Earley, Comrade J (New York: Berkeley Books, 2009), p. 299.
“You could have killed him”: Ibid., p. 301.
“reckless”: “John Kerry: We Could Have Shot Down Russian Jets ‘Buzzing’ US Warship,” Guardian, April 14, 2016.
“We will continue”: Pavel Felgenhauer, “Russian Jets Fly Close to US Ship and Recon Aircraft over Baltic Sea,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, April 21, 2016.
“Narva is a part of NATO”: “US Armor Paraded 300 Meters from Russian Border,” RT News, March 23, 2015.
“It’s no secret”: www.freekaliningrad.ru/tsukanov-intelligence-services-of-the-west.
“creeping Germanization”: Sergey Sukhaov, “Kaliningrad as a New Ideological Battlefield Between Russia and the West,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, April 25, 2016.
“Senior Russian intellectuals”: Ibid.
“superpower agency”: “Putin’s Personal Army,” Moscow Times, April 7, 2016.
“stressing competitors”: Lisa Ferdinando, “Carter Outlines Security Challenges, Warns Against Sequestration,” DoD News, March 17, 2016.
“has not accepted the hand”: Julian Barnes, “NATO’s Breedlove Calls for Sharper Focus on Russia Ahead of Departure,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2016.
“may not be”: Ibid.
PART TWO: BACKGROUND CHECK“…the time is right”: The Rolling Stones, “Street Fighting Man,” Beggars Banquet.
CHAPTER 2: THE EDUCATION OF V. V. PUTIN“All decent people”: Vladimir Putin, First Person (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), p. 81.
“For the first time”: Robert Gates, Quotation of the Day, New York Times, September 20, 2008.
“You hold things dearer in there”: Richard Lourie, Russia Speaks (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 189.
“When he became President”: Ben Judah, Fragile Empire (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013), p. 20.
“Once my mother”: Putin, First Person, p. 6.
“sun, moon and stars”: Ibid., p. 61.
“horrendous”: Ibid., p. 10.
“hordes of rats”: Ibid.
“potential, energy, and character”: Ibid., p. 17.
“He was ordinary”: Andrew Jack, Inside Putin’s Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 52.
“honest”: Inna Lazareva, “Remembering Vladimir Putin as a boy,” New Statesman, Jan. 15, 2015.
“the streets of Leningrad”: Daniel Triesman, “For Vladimir Putin What’s at Stake in Metrojet Investigation,” CNN, November 6, 2015.
“The greatest criminals”: Ben Judah, “Behind the Scenes in Putin’s Court,” Newsweek, July 23, 2014.
“Books and spy movies”: Putin, First Person, p. 22.
“They went to see different”: The poem “Restoration of Order” by Stanislaw Baranczak in my translation from Polish was published in Dissent, Winter 1984.
“came on their own initiative”: Putin, First Person, p. 23.
“But what kind”: Ibid.
“From that moment”: Ibid.
“silent man”: Ibid., p. 4.
“only a fool”: Judah, Fragile Empire, p. 10.
“I didn’t think”: Putin, First Person, pp. 41–42.
“After a breakfast”: Lourie, Russia Speaks, p. 312.
“Once, at Eastertime … Suddenly somebody’s socks”: Putin, First Person, p. 52.
“Only the nineteenth century”: Gary Weir and Walter Boybe, Rising Tide (New York: New American Library, 2003), p. 41.