Joe Luc Barnes

When Joe Luc Barnes arrived in Moscow in 2014 as an English ‘governor’ to a six-year-old oligarch’s son, he expected Tolstoy-style dachas and polite tea. Instead, he found flashing blue lights, Champagne Sundays and an 85% approval rating for Vladimir Putin.Eight years, 60,000 miles and one full-scale invasion later, Barnes set out to discover how every former Soviet republic –...