Praise for "From Soviet to Putin and Back"

          “When discussing this theme, it is always important to strike the right balance: to assess how dependent Russia’s developmental turning points are on the state of the oil market, and at the same time to bear in mind the fundamental problems related to the “Socialist experiment,” post-socialist recession, and the resumption of economic growth. This book describes well the impact of the developments in the oil extraction industry on Russia’s internal and external policies. I can assure you that it is one thing to govern Russia when the price of oil is $20 per barrel, and quite another when it goes up to $80.”

– Yegor Gaidar, former Acting Prime Minister, The Russian Federation

          “An amazing story of Russia’s lifeblood: oil and gas, a story that lasted for more than a century. I was part of this during the heady days of Yukos when we outperformed practically every oil company in the world. It came to an end when the Putin government decided to re-concentrate the energy business. This book is a major contribution to the understanding of those events, what came before and what became after.”

– Joe Mach, former First Vice President, Yukos

          "Prof. Economides and D’Aleo’s book is a major tour de force in explaining Russian power through modern history and the direct relationship with energy resources. President Vladimir Putin understood this better than perhaps any other Russian leader and has used oil and gas as a means of personal and national empowerment. The process has not been necessarily pretty or democratic and only the future will show if Russia's re-Sovietization will be positive or negative for that country and, especially, its relationship with the United States and Europe.”

– Michael Williams, Chairman, Texas Railroad Commission

          "In this latest brilliant work, Professor Economides describes in vivid and unflattering detail Putin’s noxious, wholesale expropriation of Russia’s natural resources to further his own political ambitions. This is the same policy of energy imperialism I have decried publicly since 2003, when the Kremlin’s unlawful incarceration of my client and outright theft of his oil company marked a major milestone along Putin’s path back to the autocratic repression of former Soviet days.

– Robert Amsterdam, international lawyer for former Yukos Chairman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, currently imprisoned in Siberia."