A

thrilling account of how Russia is waging a hidden war against America and the

West, using espionage, corruption, fake news, and KGB-style murder

March

2018. Two Russian assassins arrive in a provincial English city to kill a

former officer from Russia’s GRU intelligence agency. His crime? Passing

secrets to British spies. The poison? A lethal nerve agent, novichok. The

attempted execution was a reminder – as if one were needed - of Russia’s contempt

for international norms. The Soviet Union and its doctrine are long gone, but

the playbook used by the Kremlin’s spies during that long confrontation with

the West is back. And the underlying goal remains the same: to undermine

democracy and exploit divisions within American and European society and

politics.

Moscow’s support for Donald

Trump in the 2016 presidential election has grown into the biggest political

scandal of modern times. Its American players are well-known. In Shadow

State, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Luke Harding reveals

the Russians behind the story: the spies, hackers and internet trolls. Harding

charts how the Kremlin has updated Communist-era methods of influence and

propaganda for the age of Facebook and Twitter, and considers the compelling

question of our age: what exactly does Vladimir Putin have on President Trump?

Similar to those of the Cold

War, Putin’s ambitions are truly global. His emissaries include oligarchs, bankers,

lawyers, mercenaries, and agents of influence. They roam from Salisbury to

Helsinki, Ukraine to Central Africa, London to Washington, D.C. Shadow State

is the singular account of how the Kremlin seeks to reshape the world, to

divide the US from its European friends, and to remake America in its own dark

and kleptocratic image. This is an essential read for anyone who wants to

understand how our politics came to be so chaotic and divided. Nothing less

than the future of Western democracy is at stake.