Catherine Belton | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Politics |
| Notable works | Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West |
Catherine Elizabeth BeltonMBE (born 1973) is a British journalist and writer. From 2007 to 2013, she was the Moscow correspondent for theFinancial Times. InPutin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, published in 2020, Belton explored the rise of Russian presidentVladimir Putin. It was named book of the year byThe Economist, theFinancial Times, theNew Statesman andThe Telegraph. It is also the subject of five separate lawsuits brought by Russian billionaires andRosneft.
Belton lives in London and reports on Russia forThe Washington Post.
Belton graduated fromDurham University (Van Mildert College) in 1996 with a degree in Modern Languages.[1]
From 2007 to 2013, Belton worked at theFinancial Times as the newspaper's Moscow correspondent, having previously written about Russian current affairs for bothThe Moscow Times andBusiness Week. She was also in 2016 the legal correspondent. In 2009, the British Press Awards shortlisted Belton for the Business journalist of the year award.[2]
Belton was appointedMember of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the2023 New Year Honours for services to journalism.[3]
Published in April 2020 by William Collins in the UK, and in June byMacmillan,Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West is an account of Russian presidentVladimir Putin's rise to power, and the Kremlin's influence on the West.[4]
Luke Harding (author ofShadow State: Murder, Mayhem and Russia's Remaking of the West), writing forThe Guardian, described the book as "the most remarkable account so far of Putin's rise from a KGB operative to deadly agent provocateur in the hated west... This is a superb book. Its only flaw is a heavy reliance on well-placed anonymous sources."[5]
The Economist namedPutin's People as one of its books of the year in the category of politics and current affairs, saying "this [book] is the closest yet to a definitive account. It draws on extensive interviews and archival sleuthing to tell a vivid story of cynicism and violence."[6] TheFinancial Times also chose it as one of its best books of 2020.[7]
In March 2021,Roman Abramovich filed a lawsuit in London against Belton and her publisher,HarperCollins, for defamation.Harbottle & Lewis represented Abramovich over the matter.[8] Belton, on the account of three former Abramovich associates, alleges that Abramovich acquiredChelsea Football Club in 2003 under Putin's instructions.[9][10] The libel suit was settled with minor amendments. Although the book carried a denial from him, future editions will explain Abramovich's motivations in more detail.[11]
Further lawsuits have been brought against HarperCollins byMikhail Fridman,Petr Aven; and against both the author and publisher byShalva Chigirinsky, andRosneft.[12] HarperCollins have stated they will "robustly defend" the actions.Nick Cohen inThe Observer described the litigation as "a pile-on from Russian billionaires on a scale this country has never witnessed" adding "London’s lawyers are hard at work.Carter-Ruck,CMS,Harbottle & Lewis andTaylor Wessing have a billionaire apiece in a kind of socialism of the litigious."[13]
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
