Masha Gessen

A Russian-American journalist, Gessen has written for The New Republic and Slate, among others. In an excerpt from her new book, The Man Without a Face, she details the thuggish ways of a young Vladimir Putin.

COLD WAR

How the Fall of the Berlin Wall Radicalized Putin

In 1989, as East Germany collapsed around him, a KGB spy in Dresden named Vladimir Putin came to some hard conclusions that would later inform his bellicose geopolitics.

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On Trial

The Modern Russian Women Trapped in Putin’s Time Machine

The Pussy Riot trial showed how far Russia is traveling backward. Masha Gessen on the 17th-century court.

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