March 2018. Two Russian assassins arrive in a small English town to assassinate a former officer of Russia's GRU intelligence organisation. What was his crime? Passing over information to British spies. What is the poison? Novichok is a dangerous nerve agent. The attempted execution served as a stark reminder of Russia's disregard for international rules. The Soviet Union and its dogma have long since vanished, but the playbook utilised by the Kremlin's spies during the lengthy conflict with the West has reappeared. And the overarching goal remains the same: to weaken democracy by exploiting differences in American and European society and politics. The Russian government's backing for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election has turned into the largest political scandal in modern history. It has well-known American players. Luke Harding, award-winning journalist and popular author, uncovers the Russians behind the tale in Shadow State: the spies, hackers, and internet trolls. Harding examines how the Kremlin has modernised Communist-era methods of influence and propaganda for the age of Facebook and Twitter, and ponders the age-old question: what precisely 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.