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controlled it.
    Just as the Family had arranged Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996, so they would soon secure Putin’s appointment as prime minister – with the intention of moving him into the presidency as Yeltsin’s successor. They had been impressed by Putin’s loyalty. As head of the FSB he effectively stymied criminal investigations into large-scale corruption and money laundering, in which members of Yeltsin’s family and senior Kremlin officials were allegedly implicated. (One of the officials, Pavel Borodin, was accused of embezzling fabulous sums during the refurbishment of Kremlin buildings. He happened to be the man who had brought Putin from St Petersburg and given him his first job in the administration.) Putin also helped his former mentor Sobchak evade prosecution on corruption charges. Loyalty would later turn out to be a striking feature of Putin’s make-up. Just as he found his own loyalty to the Family repaid, so he as president would richly reward those most loyal to him – and punish those who opposed him. The Family were not let down: Putin’s first move on becoming acting president in 2000 would be to sign the decree granting Yeltsin and his family immunity from prosecution.
    In the summer of 1999 Yeltsin’s coterie dispatched Berezovsky to talk with Putin, who was on holiday with his family in the French resort of Biarritz, and offer him the job of prime minister. Putin demurred, apparently unsure of his abilities, but when he returned to Moscow President Yeltsin would not take no for an answer. 8
    During this dizzy year of his career, Putin found himself dealing with events that would leave a deep impression on his thinking. In March 1999 three former members of the Soviet bloc, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, joined NATO. Whatever the truth about the alleged guarantees given to Gorbachev that NATO would not move eastwards (and American officials firmly deny that such a promise was made), this was the first stage of what Russia regarded as an unnecessary and threatening advance of a military alliance towards its own borders. The issue would dog the next decade of Putin’s rule.
    Just 11 days after NATO’s enlargement, the organisation launched its air strikes against Serbia, with all the repercussions described earlier in this chapter. And in August the troubles in Chechnya, which had been smouldering quietly for the past two and a half years, suddenly burst into flames – igniting a visceral fury in Putin that would inform his actions at home and abroad for many years. Fighting terrorism became an obsession.
    Since the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya at the end of 1996, the republic had enjoyed de facto autonomy and become increasingly lawless. Its relatively moderate elected government was undermined by warlords such as Salman Raduyev and Shamil Basayev, the man who had been behind the hostage-taking in Budyonnovsk. Kidnapping became commonplace. After the murders of six Red Cross workers and four kidnapped telecoms workers, foreigners scarcely dared set foot in the republic. Islamic fundamentalism took hold, and some of the warlords developed links with Middle Eastern extremist groups, including al-Qaeda.
    On 7 August 1999 Basayev and a Saudi-born Islamist, Ibn Al-Khattab, launched a well-planned invasion of some 1,500 men into Chechnya’s neighbouring republic, Dagestan. Their aim was to establish an Islamic state there – a first step towards the creation of an Islamic superstate throughout Russia’s northern Caucasus region. The attack also catapulted Putin to the highest office. The next day Yeltsin appointed his steely security chief as prime minister to tackle the problem.
    Putin’s sudden emergence from nowhere as the country’s future leader was astonishing. He was still virtually unknown in the country, and indeed to most of the political elite. But in the months that followed he became the new face of Russia – tough, energetic and ruthless in responding