SpyChess Interview (Part 1): Author Andrei Soldatov on the Russian security services, Putin's present, and Russia's future.

What are the forces shaping Russia's present and future?

Former CIA Case Officer Tennent H. Bagley once wrote, “the past pervades counterintelligence work–or it should.” Modern Russia, its leaders, and its strategic priorities are the products of a very particular past. A past that saw the fall of an empire and the rise of men from its security service, the KGB, to the pinnacle of power.

Since the fall of the…