The Descent: Witnessing Russia’s Spiral into Madness Under Putin

Crazed propaganda, brutal repression, and helpless public acquiescence underpin Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime, according to this heartbroken memoir. Bennetts (I’m Going to Ruin Their Live) revisits his 25 years living in Russia and covering it for The Times of London and other media outlets before he fled the country in 2022. He describes how Putin consolidated power by crafting an image as a strong force for order, gaining control of the media, perpetrating massive election fraud, arresting and murdering political opponents, and laying the groundwork for the Ukraine war. Bennetts tells the story through personal observations and interviews, including with newscasters who lied about Ukrainian soldiers crucifying a Russian toddler; his Russian mother-in-law, who believed television propaganda and cut him off; a Siberian shaman who tried to exorcize Putin from the Kremlin and wound up consigned to a psych ward; Ukrainian villagers tortured by Russian occupation troops; and Russian dissidents who volunteered to fight on the Ukrainian side. In Bennetts’s vivid rendering, Russia has fallen into an almost medieval mindset, with citizens exerting zero control over an abusive officialdom—at one point, he profiles the burgeoning cottage industry of witches employed to cast spells over unresponsive bureaucrats—while maintaining a peasant-like faith that a distant ruler will intervene in their problems. The melancholy result casts a bleak light on the Russian national psyche. (May)