One of the mysteries of the decline of a once-great political party in the United States is how Republicans—long the leader in fighting Soviet aggression—became a home for Vladamir Putin supporters and apologists. In reading a true-life account that captures the murderous evil of Putin’s regime in stark detail, that question only deepens.

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice (2015) by Bill Browder is the story of an unlikely hero who took on the oligarchs and political leaders of post-Soviet Russia. Once the largest foreign investor in Russia, Browder was expelled from the country in 2005 as a threat to national security after exposing corruption in business and government. His Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, wasn’t so lucky after he uncovered $230 million in stolen taxes. Magnitsky ended up in jail where he was tortured and killed. His death changed the direction of Browder’s life, a transformation told in this thriller-like account.

Browder’s grandfather Earl was the chairman of the communist party in the United States in the 1930s and first part of the 1940s. But as the grandson became an adult, he decided to embrace capitalism and subsequently obtained a BA in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Stanford Business School. With his family history, he was drawn to invest in Eastern Europe and specifically Russia following the break-up of the Soviet Union, and it was there he made his fortune.

But in seeking to invest foreign capital in Russia, he encountered the handful of oligarchs who were stripping the country of its wealth using every means possible. At the heart of this change from a nascent democracy to an autocratic government controlled by the wealthy was Vladamir Putin, who used bribes, lies, torture, and murder to achieve his goals. When oligarchs tried to steal the money of Browder’s investors, he fought back, which led to his expulsion.

After Magnitsky’s horrible death in a Russian prison, Browder became an unlikely human rights advocate, eventually turning to countries outside Russia for assistance. After initiating a global campaign for governments around the world to impose targeted visa bans and asset freezes on human rights abusers and highly corrupt officials, Browder was able to convince the United States to lead the way in imposing these targeted sanctions, first with the passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Accountability Act in 2012 followed by the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act in 2016. In doing so, he became one of Putin’s top enemies and has been targeted with threats of arrest and death.

Browder has written a work that reads like a classic spy thriller but is based in the world of investment and politics. As the late Senator John McCain, one of the key co-sponsors of the Magnitsky Act has noted, Red Notice helps us understand “the culture of corruption and impunity in Putin’s Russia today.” Sadly, the Republican party of John McCain no longer exists, as grifters and extremists have taken power in the party, promoting Russian talking points and working with Russian interests in their efforts to dismantle American democracy.

The book ends with a description of the show trial that Putin held for Magnitsky and Browder—one who was already dead and one who was nowhere near the country.

It was all a show, a Potemkin court. This is Russia today. A stuffy room presided over by a corrupt judge, policed by unthinking guards, with lawyers who are there just to give the appearance of a real trial, and with no defendant in the cage. A place where lies reign supreme. A place where two and two is still five, white is still black, and up is still down. A place where convictions are certain, and guilt a given. Where a foreigner can be convicted in absentia of crimes he did not commit.

A place where an innocent man who was murdered by the state, a man whose only crime was loving his country too much, can be made to suffer from beyond the grave.

This is Russia today.

Red Notice is an important reminder of the brutal realities of the Putin regime, which we are seeing daily in Ukraine. We support him at our peril.

And as another reminder of what Putin and the Russians are doing to Ukrainian culture, I thought it would be especially appropriate to hear Robin Bullock’s lovely arrangement of the Ukrainian tune Carol of the Bells. Composed by Mykola Leontovych—an internationally recognized choral conductor, teacher, and composer who was assassinated by a Soviet state security agent in 1921—this beautiful tune comes alive in Robin’s hands.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo by Vladimir Sayapin on Unsplash