Ben Stewart - Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg

My apologies to the campaigners whose efforts are not recognised in this book. There are too many to name here, but it’s a particular regret that I couldn’t include the exploits of Jessica Wilson, Elena Polisano, Sol Gosetti and Dima Sharomov. The contributions of Nora Christensen, Ben Ayliffe, Fabien Rondal, Neil Hamilton, James Turner, Rachel Murray, Iris Andrews and Jasper Teulings were more significant than the brevity of their mentions suggests. The same can be said for the heroic staff of Greenpeace Russia. I thank them for their understanding.

Thanks also to my agent, David Godwin, for steering a goldfish through a shark pool, and to Laura Hassan and Carl Bromley for their advice and support. I owe a great deal to the friends who took time to read early drafts before proffering invaluable advice, and to John Sauven and Robin Oakley at Greenpeace for supporting me from an early stage. Very special thanks to the volunteers who transcribed interviews, and of course to the interviewees themselves – especially to the released prisoners who gave me their time.

While the thirty were in jail I barely spent any time at home, and when I was there I lay awake on the bed reading tomes of Russian political analysis. My girlfriend wondered if we might go away for a while. I told her I couldn’t possibly leave the campaign at such a critical juncture. She said I’d been saying that for weeks, so we compromised and booked a weekend in France. At a café table in the shadow of the Abbaye de Saint-Riquier she sat opposite me, and not for the first time she sipped coffee after coffee in silence as I sat over my laptop with earphones clamped to my head, a microphone at my lips, looking like a pretend helicopter pilot, fielding Skype calls from around the world.

Lorna, I’m sorry about that. Thank you for your love and constant encouragement.