When Russia emerged from the debris of 70 years of Communist one-party rule, the country seemed on the verge of becoming a democracy and a respected player on the international scene. But it failed, instead becoming a dictatorship which has no respect for human rights or dignity. How did this happen? This book dares to provide answers.

The Successor explores Russia's political history through the life of the Russian liberal leader Boris Nemtsov, who started his political career in the late 80s - at the height of Gorbachev's Perestroika - and was murdered on a Moscow bridge near the Kremlin in 2015.

Nemtsov took part in or witnessed all the landmark events that shaped Russia and its political trajectory, from the first free national elections and the coup attempt of 1991 to the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Nemtsov's fate reflects Russia's fate.

Drawing on archival materials and off-the-record interviews with figures such as Alexey Navalny, exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Fishman constructs a comprehensive and deeply disturbing account of the decline of freedom in his country - a biography of Nemtsov that is also a biography of Russia itself.