Books by Mark Galeotti

The first English-language book to document the men who emerged from the gulags to become Russia's much-feared crime class: the vory v zakone

A The Times best book of 2019'In fewer than 150 pithy pages, Galeotti sketches a bleak, but convincing picture of the man in the Kremlin and the political system that he dominates' - The TimesMeet the world's most dangerous man.

Storm-333 was the opening move in the Soviet-Afghan War, a special-forces mission to seize Kabul and assassinate Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin. At once a textbook success for the Spetsnaz and KGB and the start of a terrible strategic blunder for the USSR, this is the most authoritative history of the operation available in English.Storm-333, the operation to seize Kabul and assassinate Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin, was at once a textbook success and the start of a terrible blunder. It heralded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, an operation intended to be a short, largely symbolic show of force, yet which quickly devolved into a gritty ten-year counter-insurgency which Moscow was never able to win. Nonetheless, Storm-333 was a striking success, and despite initial concerns from some quarters that it would be impossible, it saw a relative handful of Soviet special forces drawn from the KGB and the military seize the heavily defended presidential palace, neutralize the city''s communications and defenses, and open Kabul to occupation. The lessons learned then are still valid today, and have been incorporated into modern Russian military art, visible most recently in the seizure of Crimea in 2014.Written by a recognized expert on the Soviet security forces, drawing extensively on Russian sources, and fully illustrated with commissioned artwork, this is the most detailed and compelling study of this fascinating operation available in English.

Covers "security", incorporating military doctrine, political skulduggery, international relations and economic stablilty, seeking to knit them together into a coherent whole. The book follows a broadly chronological line and each chapter contains a chronology.

This volume illustrates the way the war in Afghanistan fed into a wide range of other processes, from the rise of grassroots political activism to the retreat from globalism in foreign policy.

By turns radical, uncertain, ambitious and autocratic, Mikhail Gorbachev and his bid to reform the Soviet Union have shaped the contemporary world. Drawing on the latest memoirs and scholarship, this book follows Gorbachev's increasingly desperate attempts to control the forces he unleashed and hold together a state whose days were over.