Killer in the Kremlin: The instant bestseller - a gripping and explosive account of Vladimir Putin's tyranny

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The reason Sweeney can say all this now is that he feels “liberated” by the independent work he has done since, especially his Hunting Ghislaine podcast about the Jefferey Epstein scandal, which he is adapting into a book, and now his reporting from Ukraine. Sarah Rainsford, the BBC correspondent who was banned from Russia last year, recently told i of her own frustrations while covering Moscow. He believes he has a responsibility to show the uncensored reality of war, sharing images you will not see on TV or in newspapers.

One thing is certain, many more Ukraine and Russian soldiers, and sadly many more Ukraine citizens will die and the Ukraine cities, countryside and economy will be scared for generations. If Sweeney could “doorstep” Johnson and ambush him with an unexpected interview, what would he most like to ask?The reason Sweeney mentions this now, besides his pride at confronting a dictator, is because of how Putin’s appearance has changed since then. The book opens with Sweeney being in Ukraine as Russian troops launch their attack on Ukraine in February 2022. He accused Putin, previously head of the FSB security service, of conspiring with agents to bomb Moscow apartment blocks in September 1999, blaming the 307 deaths on Chechen rebels and using this as an excuse to launch a full-blown war against them. An internal BBC investigation found that Sweeney's conduct at one point in the filming was clearly inappropriate, but also noted that Sweeney had apologised for his outburst and concluded that as a whole, filming of the documentary had been performed in a proper and fair manner. At first I was worried this book wouldn’t offer much which was new, but Sweeney’s career holding Putin to account, as well as his highly personable writing style, ensured there was much new material to learn from in this book.

Though the book can at times feel too personal and he does portray himself as a lad journalist against the world (this was in no part helped by the books narrator who injected the reading with the bravado of a nuts magazine editor).The BBC Moscow office’s relationship with the Kremlin… there was something wrong and rotten about it,” he says.