Sal'ye summed up the operation and Putin’s ambition... "...Cook up a legally defective contract ...take a license to the Customs Office... open the b… - Karen Dawisha

Putin began his political career in St. Petersburg in... 1990, as advisor to... Mayor Anatoliy Sobchak, and later as the deputy... mayor... From... 1991, to... 1996, he was... chairman of the Committee for Foreign Liaison (KVS)... regulating, and licensing foreign investment in St. Petersburg and Russian investment... abroad... uniquely positioned to regulate... money, goods, and services into and out of Russia’s largest trading city... When Putin went to work for Sobchak, he immediately began to gather ...the core group ...who would work with him throughout the 1990s... into his presidency. They came from... the KGB, the Main Intelligence Directorate (...GRU), , and legal and business circles. ...[T]he inner core consisted of Dmitriy Medvedev, , , , , , , , Aleksey Miller, , and .

I also got a few reviews from people who said, "ok, so they're corrupt, but it's not a ." So... what do I mean by saying that... a political system is a kleptocracy?

[T]he core of the book starts 1991... I regard it as the most conservative analysis possible, based on extensive interviews, of Putin's involvement in illicit activities in the 90s. His efforts to suppress legal cases... against him, and the rise to power of the group around him.