Inside Putin’s dark rise to power | Full documentary

0:07it's a story of Russia and how Russia

0:11has changed for all this period of time

0:13Vladimir Putin saw himself very much in

0:16the kind of romantic tradition of Soviet

0:18spycraft Putin thinks he's a brilliant

0:20spy he decided that he was going to do

0:23everything he could to crush any sort of

0:25opposition in Russia there is a

0:28government operated death squat

0:30inside the security services this guy

0:33had that feel about him that he was a

0:36criminal what threatens him is the idea

0:38of sovereignty the idea of freedom and

0:40the idea of democracy for

0:42Ukraine it's this secret mentality that

0:46everything has to be sort of behind

0:47closed

0:51doors Anga was terrified of dogs she had

0:55a phobia of dogs Putin knew that he

0:57wants to prove that he's the toughest

1:00guy in the

1:18room Vladimir Putin has recently warned

1:21Western countries that he's prepared to

1:23use nuclear weapons in his war with

1:26Ukraine

1:30did Putin always have such

1:33views consider these thoughts expressed

1:36long ago in this first ever on camera

1:38interview we found deep in the Russian

1:41archives the belief that all

1:43russian-speaking people should be United

1:45as they were in the old Russian

1:48Empire he blames the founders of the

1:50USSR for creating territories like

1:53Ukraine that became

1:57countries the Soviet leaders broke broke

2:00our Fatherland into separate territories

2:02which had never appeared on any world

2:04maps provided those territories with

2:06governments and parliaments now we have

2:09what we

2:12have Putin's rise to supreme power in

2:15Moscow and his attempt to rebuild the

2:17old Russian Empire would lead to his

2:19shelling of the Russians speaking areas

2:21of Ukraine killing thousands of the

2:24former Soviet countrymen he professed to

2:27care

2:28for this is the story of his dark

2:36Journey on many occasions Vladimir Putin

2:39has performed his favorite judo moves

2:41before TV

2:43cameras at age 24 he had been the Judo

2:46champion of his hometown of Leningrad

2:48now St

2:50Petersburg he has also spoken of Judo as

2:53the thing that turned his life around

2:55when he was introduced to it as a young

2:57boy I did not start school until I was

3:00almost 8 years old we still have the

3:02photo in our family archive I am in an

3:05old-fashioned gray school

3:08uniform Putin grew up in poverty his

3:11father was a factory worker the family

3:13was assigned an apartment in a

3:15five-story building with no

3:17[Music]

3:19elevator we lived in one room in a

3:21communal flat on the fifth floor the

3:24last

3:25floor sometimes the ceiling leaked these

3:28were our living conditions we didn't

3:30even have a

3:31shower there were hordes of rats in the

3:33front entryway my friends and I used to

3:36chase them around with sticks once I

3:38spotted a huge rat and pursued it down

3:41the hall until I drove it into a corner

3:43suddenly it lashed around and threw

3:45itself at me I got a lasting lesson in

3:49the meaning of the word

3:54cornered now a journalist Constantine

3:56Edgard grew up in similar circumstances

3:58to Putin in the same era I immediately

4:02recognized the type that would have been

4:04the boy with whom my mother would not

4:06have recommended that they play in the

4:08yard uh the one who would you know uh

4:12torture cats and hit uh the young

4:16children I really was a bad boy I was a

4:20hooligan I got into sports when I was

4:23about 10 or 11 I decided to go into

4:26boxing but I didn't last long there I

4:29quick got my nose broken the pain was

4:32terrible I decided to go for [ __ ] a

4:36Soviet combination of Judo and wrestling

4:39it was sports that dragged me off the

4:44streets I think that Putin wanted to be

4:46the bully uh that will be yes

4:50eventually one of the biggest at least

4:52in his

4:58crowd put says that another big turning

5:01point in his life came when as a

5:03teenager he saw the Soviet TV film

5:05series The Sword and the shield a heroic

5:08portrayal of Soviet spies working Behind

5:11Enemy Lines in Nazi

5:16Germany even before I graduated from

5:19school I wanted to work in

5:23intelligence then books and spy movies

5:25like The Sword and the shield took hold

5:27of my imagination

5:32what amazed me most was how one man's

5:35effort could achieve what whole armies

5:37could

5:38not one spy could decide the fate of

5:41thousands at least that's the way I

5:43understood

5:45it Putin set his sights on becoming an

5:48officer of the KGB the Soviet Secret

5:50Police Service that was the most

5:52powerful branch of the communist

5:57government Australian journalist Zo shf

6:00talovich was born in the Soviet Union I

6:03think it was quite a startling thing

6:05that someone might say that they wanted

6:06to join the KGB it was a an organization

6:09that was feared and reviled by many it

6:12would pit neighbor against neighbor it

6:14would set children against their parents

6:16so it was quite astounding that that was

6:18something that he wanted but it gave a

6:20pretty good indication of the direction

6:22of travel for Putin from seemingly a

6:24very young

6:25age in order to find out how to become a

6:28spy sometime around the beginning of the

6:309th grade I went to the KGB office a guy

6:35came out and listened to me I said I

6:37want to get a job with you he said

6:41that's terrific but you can come to us

6:43only after the army or after some type

6:45of Civilian higher education I was

6:49intrigued what kind of higher education

6:51I asked law

6:58school who eventually made it to the

7:00Leningrad University Law Department and

7:03sure enough as he was about to graduate

7:05the KGB came knocking he was thrilled

7:09shortly after completing his agent

7:11training he met lud Milla an airline

7:13flight attendant and he eventually

7:17proposed they were married in 1983

7:20quickly had their first daughter and he

7:22received his first foreign posting to

7:24Dresden East

7:26Germany they lived around the corner

7:28from the cage GB offices

7:31there he was regularly in and out of the

7:33headquarters of the stazi the dreaded

7:35East German secret police this was his

7:38East German police ID card later found

7:41in the stazzy

7:46archives the stazzy headquarters in

7:48Dresden has been turned into a museum

7:51where you can see the old Patty wagons

7:53that transported hundreds of dissidents

7:55that were arrested every

7:58month the four floors of cells where

8:01they were

8:02detained the rooms where they were

8:04interrogated and the dungeons where many

8:07were tortured or

8:10murdered preserved here too are the

8:12photos of the young Soviet agent

8:14Vladimir Putin who served here for 5

8:17years he was awarded a medal from the

8:19stazzy for his

8:22service Hubertus canab is Germany's

8:25leading historian of the stazi he says

8:28Putin fit the profile of someone who

8:30wanted to work for the secret police you

8:33have a secret organization who are like

8:37little Gods if you want uh to put it

8:40like that so they could decide if

8:41somebody who walked on the street came

8:43to prison or

8:45not Putin worked at this KGB Dresden

8:48Outpost at number four Angelica stasa

8:51there are photos of him posing behind

8:53his superiors here and many photos of

8:56his daily life in

8:58Dresden you see Vladimir Putin as a

9:02young man trying to serve his higher

9:06ranking

9:07comrades and uh you can see in his face

9:12that he was not like a leading figure

9:14more like a serving

9:16figure I would say that Putin was not

9:19very

9:21important Luke Harding served as the

9:24Moscow bureau chief for the Guardian

9:26newspaper I think Vladimir Putin saw

9:28himself

9:30very much in the kind of romantic

9:31tradition of of Soviet spycraft as

9:34someone who could who could join this

9:35world and thrive in this world the the

9:38problem was I mean he did manage to to

9:39get inside but within a decade he was

9:41not running around New York or or or

9:45Washington or Paris or London having the

9:47sort of Adventures you might imagine

9:49from Soviet films he was stuck in

9:51Dresden in communist East Germany

9:53shuffling Bits of Paper

10:03in November 1989 the Soviet Empire began

10:06to crumble as the Berlin Wall came

10:08down it was the climax of a period of

10:11mass uprisings against Communist

10:13governments throughout Eastern

10:16[Applause]

10:20Europe Delirious protesters began taking

10:23down the wall with their bare

10:25hands at first the East German police

10:28tried to scare the away with water

10:30cannons and fire hoses but it was no use

10:33the police were soon

10:41overwhelmed within weeks the crowds had

10:43surrounded then Burst Into The Dresden

10:46stazy headquarters they wanted to stop

10:48the destruction of Records the evidence

10:50of those who secretly spied on and

10:53betrayed their fellow

10:55citizens some moved on to the nearby

10:58local KGB

10:59Outpost where they encountered Vladimir

11:02Putin at the

11:03entrance in this first crisis of his

11:06career Putin showed that he was willing

11:08to shoot human beings to protect some

11:15documents we had to show we were

11:17prepared I even had to tell our security

11:19team to show their weapons unfortunately

11:22which wasn't great in my

11:24view I had an appropriate weapon of

11:27course I was an officer

11:30we were prepared to defend ourselves

11:32against the crowd and we would have been

11:33within our rights to do so we had

11:36documents in our building our lists of

11:39contacts and our agents networks I

11:41personally burned a huge amount of

11:43material those crowds were a serious

11:48threat I called our group of forces and

11:51I was told we cannot do anything without

11:53orders from Moscow and Moscow is

11:57silent I got the feeling that the

11:59country no longer existed that it had

12:05disappeared 2 years later the Soviet

12:07Union would disappear which Putin would

12:10describe as the greatest geopolitical

12:12catastrophe of the

12:16century while Putin would see the fall

12:19of the Berlin wall and the breakup of

12:20the Soviet Union as a catastrophe it

12:23would actually prove beneficial for his

12:25career he would return to Leningrad

12:28where he would use his KGB methods to

12:31advance his political

12:33[Music]

12:39[Music]

12:41ambition Vladimir Putin now lives in

12:44opulence in the golden crusted Kremlin

12:47but says he remembers the tough times in

12:49his hometown of Leningrad after the fall

12:52of the Berlin wall when he had to

12:54Moonlight as a taxi

12:56driver sometimes I had to earn extra

12:58money I mean earn extra money as a

13:00private driver it's unpleasant to talk

13:03about to be honest but unfortunately

13:06that was the

13:08case momentous change was arriving in

13:11the Soviet Union Democratic reformers

13:14were on the March and the KGB was trying

13:16to stop

13:18them the agency assigned Putin to

13:21penetrate the reform movement he offered

13:23to work as a driver and organizer for

13:25several leading

13:27figures I was happy to go undercover at

13:29Leningrad State University I wanted to

13:32check out the university and perhaps get

13:34a job

13:37there Putin was hired as an assistant to

13:40the crusading liberal University

13:42Professor Anatoli soek who became the

13:44first elected mayor of St

13:50[Music]

13:52Petersburg he claims that he confessed

13:55to soak that he was a KGB agent and that

13:57soak didn't care

14:01Putin was eventually named deputy

14:05mayor in those first years of democracy

14:08St Petersburg was being overwhelmed by

14:11chaos there was open Warfare between

14:14criminal gangs fighting for

14:16Turf there were murders every

14:19day Putin made connections with the

14:21heads of some of the criminal gangs

14:23theoretically to mediate the turf

14:27wars there have been fairy tales about

14:30the criminal St Petersburg but things

14:32could get violent at my Cottage I would

14:36sleep with my gun such were the times

14:39better safe than

14:42sorry he was very deeply involved with

14:45the uh St petersburger

14:49underworld uh of the time of course he

14:52was prev to a lot of very very uh dirty

14:56stuff

15:00Putin was becoming a political figure

15:02and he invited a local filmmaker to

15:04start following him around to build up

15:06his image we

15:08should there were rumors at that time

15:10that Putin was

15:12corrupt some businessmen approaching him

15:15for a license to set up new companies in

15:17the city say they were told to give a

15:19$10,000 bribe as part of their

15:22application Putin was even asked on

15:24camera about the allegations and he

15:26didn't actually deny it what for

15:49[Music]

15:59it would be

16:00impossible for a Russian official during

16:03this period to be Mr Clean it's just not

16:06how it worked if if you were Mr Clean

16:08then you would be removed uh Putin was

16:10not Mr Clean he was Mr

16:12grubby despite the notorious corruption

16:15in St Petersburg Putin became known as

16:17an effective can do manager he was

16:20brought to Moscow to serve in the

16:22presidential administration of Boris

16:24yelson his career took off yelson was so

16:28impressed with Putin that he appointed

16:30him to head the FSB the renamed KGB

16:33Security

16:35[Music]

16:49Agency by this time yelton was in

16:52serious decline he had had several heart

16:55attacks and was drinking to excess he

16:58often seemed lost and confused and was

17:01sometimes making a fool of himself in

17:06public most presidential decisions seem

17:08to be made by his daughter

17:11taana the yelton family were also the

17:13target of a major corruption

17:15investigation their secret Swiss bank

17:17accounts and massive credit card

17:19spending had leaked into the newspapers

17:29the yelton corruption investigation was

17:31being led by Russia's prosecutor General

17:33Yuri

17:36skuratov skuratov suddenly found himself

17:38the target of Vladimir

17:41Putin in a classic KGB style operation

17:44called a honey trap a drunken skuratov

17:47was lured into a hotel room with two

17:49prostitutes and the ensuing threesome

17:52was filmed by hidden

17:54cameras skuratov was confronted with the

17:57evidence in a meeting in yel 's office

17:59attended by then prime minister ieni

18:01primov himself a Former Intelligence

18:04Chief and

18:06Putin Mr yelson took out the videotape

18:09and photos made from it he just put them

18:11on the table and said I don't think you

18:14should work as prosecutor General any

18:16longer primakov agreed yes Mr skuratov I

18:20think you had better write a letter of

18:22resignation Yuri thought for a while

18:25then he took out a piece of paper and

18:27wrote that he was resoled R after that

18:30meeting skuratov friends in government

18:32rallied around him and so he tried to

18:35resend his

18:39resignation until Putin delivered the

18:41cig by giving the Honey Trap tape to a

18:44national TV channel where it was

18:46broadcast to millions of

18:48viewers skuratov was

18:52finished that impressed I mean there's

18:54there's um nothing like um uh bringing

18:58down a a a a prosecutor in a public sex

19:01scandal to to impress the boss and and

19:05really was was almost like a kind of

19:06calling card for for for yelson and

19:08yon's team that that Putin was reliable

19:11um and he got the job

19:15done yelson was extremely appreciative

19:18of Putin's Relentless dirty campaign to

19:20defend him his family decided that Putin

19:23was just the man to succeed yelon as

19:26president and protect their interests as

19:28especially as they were still the target

19:30of corruption

19:33investigations in August 1999 yelson

19:36stunned the country with an announcement

19:38that the relatively unknown Putin was

19:41his new choice for prime

19:52minister he was looking for someone who

19:54was going to be unfailingly loyal and

19:57that was Putin Putin demonstrated

20:00through the sarav affair and then

20:01subsequently as well through the promise

20:04that he made to yelon that he would

20:05deliver immunity for him he essentially

20:08gave yelson a way out which was not

20:12necessarily going to occur if yelson had

20:14appointed someone

20:15else facing an election in a few months

20:18as a complete unknown Putin needed to

20:21build a wave of popular support

20:25fast and so he turned to tried and true

20:28methods

20:29patriotic propaganda and

20:40War in Moscow the reminders of Putin's

20:43war in Ukraine have been everywhere on

20:47recruitment Billboards at many subway

20:49stops even in Christmas

20:52decorations many believe that Putin

20:54declared this war to keep himself in

20:56power much as he went went to war in

20:591999 to increase his popularity heading

21:02into his first presidential

21:06election his Target was the southern

21:08Russian Republic of CIA where the yelton

21:11regime had been struggling for years to

21:13deal with a rebel

21:15Insurgency suddenly the new prime

21:17minister was on TV every night posing as

21:20a fighter pilot personally handling

21:23weapons and declaring that he would

21:25crush the cin

21:27Insurgency it

21:48a month after he became prime minister

21:50the stakes got much higher in September

21:531999 a series of explosions hit four

21:56apartment blocks in Moscow and other

21:58cities

21:59killing more than 300 injuring more than

22:041,000 there was this real fear this

22:06feeling that you never know what's going

22:08to happen you don't know if your

22:09building is going to be

22:11next a tragic loss of life but something

22:15didn't seem right or

22:17[Music]

22:23real at the leading Russian TV network

22:26famous Anchor Man evi kiselov was

22:29suspicious when I learned about the

22:31second explosion it came to my mind

22:35immediately that this is a conspiracy to

22:39disseminate fear and by manipulating

22:44people's fear they are going to build a

22:48whole political uh campaign on it that's

22:51what

22:53happened Putin immediately blamed the

22:55chesan Rebels for the terrorism he vowed

23:00[Music]

23:15Revenge then residents of another

23:17apartment complex saw suspicious men in

23:20the basement of their building at first

23:22local police said they found explosives

23:24and had foiled a terrorist Mission then

23:27the FSB made a stunning announcement it

23:30admitted the suspicious team were

23:32actually FSB agents and claimed they

23:34were on a training Mission contradicting

23:37police evidence it was claimed the

23:39explosives were actually bags of

23:42sugar many Russians saw it as evidence

23:45that the secret police had been behind

23:47all the explosions a false flag

23:49operation to build support for Putin's

23:51war

23:56effort what blowing up our own apartment

24:00buildings you know that is really utter

24:03nonsense it's totally insane no one in

24:06the Russian special services would be

24:08capable of such a crime against his own

24:19people I think the evidence is pretty

24:22overwhelming this was an inside

24:23operation uh organized clandestinely by

24:27the fs B and it worked brilliantly

24:29because the apartment bloomings um

24:33Consolidated um support for Putin they

24:36they um increased hatred towards the

24:39Jens and it meant that when when when

24:41Putin launched this sort of Special

24:43Operation against Chan Rebels there was

24:46almost kind of universal support from

24:47ordinary Russians so it was kind of

24:50foundational act

24:53yeah on New Year's Eve 1999 in his

24:57annual holiday TV address Boris yelton

25:00dropped another surprise bombshell he

25:03announced that he would be leaving his

25:04job immediately and that Vladimir Putin

25:06would be taking over as acting

25:13president soon after yelton named Putin

25:16as acting president an article appeared

25:18in a Moscow newspaper predicting Putin

25:20would become a dictator like Joseph

25:25[Music]

25:27Stalin remarkably it was written by the

25:30great granddaughter of another famous

25:32Soviet leader Nikita kushev one of the

25:35kushev legacies is that we're going to

25:37tone down the KGB and Elevate the party

25:40because at least the party is not going

25:41to kill

25:42you my mother for example was very um

25:46upset about yelson about the chaos and

25:50Corruption and crazy capitalism and

25:52drinking and how embarrassing it is and

25:55she was saying this cannot be worse than

25:56yelson and I said trust me we are going

25:59to be

26:01[Music]

26:06missing Putin called in a new team of

26:09Image Makers to help him prepare for the

26:11presidential election scheduled just

26:13three months

26:25away he also invited documentary fil

26:28filmmaker Vitali mansky to follow him

26:30through the critical months ahead mansky

26:33was apparently granted Total Access to

26:35Putin accompanying him through late

26:37nights at the

26:39office training his dog in the Kremlin

26:45Courtyard on midnight motorcades through

26:48the streets of the

26:51capital and even to his daily swim

26:54sessions

27:10[Music]

27:15Mikel casanov was a crusading liberal

27:17economic reformer who had served in the

27:19yelton government Putin chose casanov to

27:23be his first prime minister we all

27:25believe that Putin is a young energetic

27:28person and could continue reforms Mr

27:31yelon President yelon believed to him

27:34and many of us also believed I also was

27:38among those who believed that Putin was

27:40democratically devoted

27:43person election night March 2000 behind

27:46the scenes Putin gathered with his

27:48campaign team led by the young Dimitri

27:51medv his campaign

27:55manager also there was yelton's daughter

27:58taana and her future husband whom he

28:00kept on in his

28:04administration he won on the first

28:06ballot at that moment everything seemed

28:08possible for the new leader many

28:10believed he would change Russia for the

28:13better American businessman Bill Browder

28:16ran the biggest investment Fund in

28:19Russia when part of his campaign was

28:21that he was going to bring the power of

28:24the government back um to the presidency

28:27is seemed like an attractive thing to me

28:29because the oligarchs were there's 22

28:32oligarchs who had stolen 40% of the

28:34country from the Russian people and

28:36every everyone was living in abject

28:38poverty other than these 22 oligarchs

28:40and Putin was going to at least in his

28:43pitch he was going to correct that

28:49imbalance by the time of Putin's first

28:52inauguration as president in May 2000

28:55his Devotion to establishing a

28:56personality cult was in full

29:00flower it was a ceremony such as

29:03Russians had never before witnessed

29:05focusing on him as an almost Godlike

29:08figure but his presidency nearly

29:10foundered during his first months in

29:18[Music]

29:20power some indelible images of Putin's

29:2325 years in power come from his

29:25vacations

29:28swimming in Russia's Rivers fishing

29:31hunting or just taking in the sun with

29:34his closest friends and

29:37ministers in the first summer after his

29:40inauguration Putin went off on a long

29:42family holiday but his presidency was

29:45nearly torpedoed before it

29:49began in August 2000 the Russian nuclear

29:53submarine K lost contact with

29:55headquarters it appeared as if it had

29:57gone to the bottom of the barren sea

30:00with 118 Sailors on

30:02board when the news broke Putin decided

30:06he didn't have to interrupt his vacation

30:08to deal with the

30:11crisis several other countries offered

30:14to help rescue the Russian Sailors

30:15marooned on the ocean floor but the

30:18offers were rejected multiple Russian

30:21rescue attempts over 4 days failed the

30:24118 Sailors perished

30:30[Music]

30:32the victim's families were in a rage by

30:34the time Putin decided to finally end

30:36his vacation 10 days later and come to

30:38speak with

30:56them in fact it was not the truth

30:59foreign countries said they could have

31:01rescued the sailors when Putin was

31:03confronted by Angry Angry relatives he

31:05didn't think these are angry relatives

31:08who are upset because their loved ones

31:10are dying or dead he assumed of course

31:13this must be a provocation by his

31:14enemies because that's the sort of

31:16paranoid way his brain

31:21[Music]

31:23works in a remarkable scene on national

31:26TV a mystery woman with a hypmic needle

31:29approaches a distraught mother raging

31:32about the death of her Submariner son

31:35the mother is injected and eventually

31:37Falls

31:38unconscious it was a strong message that

31:40dissent would not be

31:43tolerated after the scene was broadcast

31:46Putin phoned into to the TV network to

31:47say the complaining women were acting

31:50the anchor man said he called them $10

31:54[ __ ] special edition of Larry King

31:57live it's are honor to have as our

31:59special guest for the full hour here in

32:00New York Vladimir Putin the submarine

32:03Scandal followed Putin on his first

32:05official visit to the United States

32:07where he appeared as a guest on the CNN

32:09show Larry King live tell me what

32:12happened with the

32:17submarine it

32:20sunk put in displayed such a stunning

32:24degree of cynicism and insensitivity

32:28that even Larry King was lost of speech

32:30what it showed was his complete almost

32:34sociopathic lack of empathy lack of

32:37empathy that that for him human life is

32:39nothing uh that that humans are are

32:42people that if need be can be tossed

32:46away another incident early in Putin's

32:49regime showed how touchy he was about

32:51any criticism

32:55[Music]

32:58my kley was the name of a very popular

33:01Russian TV show in which devastating

33:04political satire was enacted with

33:07puppets Vladimir Putin was often

33:10portrayed on the show as yelton's ugly

33:12baby then as an annoying little

33:18child the portrayal really bothered

33:20Putin got under his skin and his advisor

33:23said he immediately threatened the owner

33:25of the NTV Network that produced the

33:29show they say that he was just kind of

33:32running around the room cursing and

33:36hitting the walls and the table with a

33:40feist and saying I'm going to put him in

33:42in in a cell with the

33:45cellmates uh who suffers

33:48tuberculosis uh I'm going to rot

33:54him one of Putin's very first acts after

33:57being elected president was to send his

33:59Stormtroopers over to raid the NTV

34:01headquarters the head of the network was

34:04arrested and eventually forced to sign

34:06away the ownership of NTV Putin was

34:09sending a strong signal about the future

34:11of any Independent Media in Russia at

34:14one point Putin invited the senior

34:16journalists of NTV to the Kremlin and

34:18tried to convince them that nothing was

34:20really changing they were not buying it

34:24he immediately became very hostile and

34:26uh start started to accuse us of

34:31lacking proper understanding of

34:34government of the country's National

34:36interest why should the government uh

34:39support you if you criticize it and all

34:42kind of that that

34:44things um how how did you feel when you

34:47walked out of that

34:50meeting like covered in

34:54[ __ ] I was I had a very bad thinging

34:57Frankly Speaking because because it was

35:00obvious that this

35:03man uh is capable of thinking about uh

35:07Independent Media only in terms of uh

35:10manipulating it so if he cannot uh

35:15manipulate a a medium then uh this

35:20medium is his

35:23enemy Putin decided to take over all TV

35:26in Russia and build it into the

35:28overwhelming propaganda machine it is

35:30today foreign leaders did not seem to

35:33notice or

35:35care I wouldn't have invited him to my

35:37Ranch if I didn't trust

35:40him back in 2001 the United States also

35:44had a new President George W bush he

35:47came to meet Putin at a summit in

35:48Slovenia where he shared his instant

35:51Judgment of his Russian

35:53counterpart is this a man that Americans

35:55can trust I look the man in the I I

35:58found it to be very

36:00straightforward and

36:02trustworthy uh we had a very good

36:04dialogue I was able to um get a sense of

36:09his

36:11soul well I think George W bush regrets

36:13having said that now because it's not

36:16not clear exactly where Putin's soul is

36:19Ambassador John Bolton served in the

36:21Bush Administration and met Putin

36:23numerous times but it was indicative of

36:27the optimism that we felt that the Cold

36:30War was over that we could find a way to

36:33to bridge the differences and and work

36:35together against what we saw as common

36:38threats I think in retrospect we badly

36:41misjudged

36:43Putin

36:45[Music]

36:46stand it was not only the Americans who

36:49seemed to fall under the Putin spell on

36:51a visit to the United Kingdom in 2003

36:54Putin was given the Royal Treatment

36:57touring London beside the queen in a

36:59horsedrawn

37:01[Music]

37:04carriage it was a shock to the Russian

37:06dissident journalist Vladimir

37:09karura in June of

37:122003 literally on the same week that

37:15Vladimir Putin's government pulled the

37:17plug on the last independent television

37:19channel in Russia he was treated to a

37:23lavish State visit to London and arrived

37:27with the queen of of England it was

37:29clear from the very beginning and yet so

37:31many leaders of Western Democratic

37:34countries deliberately chose to turn a

37:36blind eye on all these domestic

37:39authoritarian

37:41[Music]

37:48abuses back in Moscow in 2002 Vladimir

37:52Putin was building an elaborate

37:54corruption scheme

37:57the beneficiaries were often his old

37:59PALS like his longtime Judo partner

38:02arcati Rottenberg who was becoming

38:04obscenely

38:06rich along with Putin's St Petersburg

38:09friends who were all on the path to

38:11becoming

38:14billionaires the level of Kremlin

38:16corruption was offensive to Russia's

38:18richest man Mikel hovi he had built

38:21yukos a wildly successful oil company

38:24and was well connected to international

38:26business and Poli political leaders he

38:29thought that gave him some protection

38:31and so he took the faithful decision to

38:33confront Putin about corruption at a

38:35televised Roundtable

38:45discussion in that famous meeting Putin

38:48reacted to hosk's criticism with a

38:50threat

38:59prime minister casanov was sitting

39:01beside Putin at the meeting and was

39:03alarmed by Putin's

39:05threat after this meeting I came

39:08together with Putin to his to his to his

39:10room and said just you absolutely wrong

39:12just shouldn't do this he said no you

39:15don't know and Putin said just general

39:19prosecutor knows what to do stop all

39:21this

39:23criticism hosk's confidence was

39:26misplaced

39:27had him arrested and dragged before a

39:30court he was subjected to what could

39:32only be described as a show trial but

39:35was often seen smiling and laughing

39:37during the court

39:41proceedings there was a complete theater

39:43of the Absurd this demonstrated that the

39:45regime didn't even have an interest in

39:47pretending that these proceedings were

39:49real Court proceedings that was their

39:51wish

39:58that was demonstration of example for

40:01other uh big owners of properties that

40:05if you don't agree with the general line

40:07of the president that what will just

40:11your destiny will go this

40:12way businessman Bill Browder had a

40:15different view he thought Russia would

40:17be better off without the old oligarchs

40:20I was cheering I thought okay one down

40:22uh one oligarch down 21 oligarchs to go

40:26I thought it was a great thing

40:28um turned out that he was the only

40:29oligarch U he took

40:33down after the show trial hodosi was

40:36found guilty of tax crimes and sentenced

40:38to 14 years his financial Empire was

40:42dismantled and the pieces were grabbed

40:44by Putin's

40:46friends it was a very powerful signal

40:49that no one is immune from Putin's wroth

40:54and that's why we've seen

40:57very very little resistance since then

41:00to any anything

41:03that puton did

41:06so in many ways it was a master

41:10stroke it was clear that Putin's

41:12alliance with liberal reformers was at

41:14an end Mikel casanov resigned as prime

41:18minister and joined the opposition

41:20ranks Vladimir Putin would go on to

41:23become much more aggressive in dealing

41:25with perceived enemies domestic and

41:35foreign today the city of marupa like

41:38much of eastern Ukraine lies in Ruins

41:41laid waste by Russian bombing this is

41:44the result of Putin's long obsession

41:47with

41:50Ukraine an obsession that dates back to

41:53the Ukrainian election of

41:552004 this was a time of hope in the

41:58country a vibrant young candidate for

42:01president Victor yusenko was leading a

42:03pro-western

42:08movement Putin came to campaign on

42:10behalf of the pro-russian candidate

42:12Victor

42:13yanukovich in a TV interview on every

42:15Ukrainian Channel he emphasized that he

42:18respected the independence and borders

42:20of Ukraine

42:34Adrian karnitsky worked closely with

42:36several Ukrainian presidents this whole

42:38effort this charm offensive uh designed

42:41to bolster yanukovich presenting this

42:45guy as a real powerful respected Ally of

42:48a great power and so Putin played that

42:51role in this uh political

42:54theater the first dramatic election

42:57development came when the pro-western

42:59candidate yusenko was poisoned with

43:02dioxin he nearly died and was left with

43:05a badly disfigured face suspicions fell

43:09on

43:13Russia then after a dubious vote count

43:16it was announced that the pro-russian

43:18candidate had won Putin quickly

43:20recognized his friend yanukovich as

43:26president but there was an immediate

43:28Uprising in the streets called the

43:30Orange

43:32Revolution the Supreme Court threw out

43:34the rigged election result and in the

43:36revote yusenko emerged as the clear

43:39winner it was a major embarrassment for

43:41Putin when I

43:43saw the orange revolution in Ukraine was

43:46happening at around the same time as the

43:48rose revolution in Georgia and the

43:50expansion of NATO to include Estonia

43:53lvia Lithuania Slovakia Slovenia Romania

43:58and

44:00Bulgaria Putin clearly saw all this as

44:02an example of the United States working

44:05against

44:08him as he complained in a landmarked

44:10speech to the Munich security conference

44:13in 2007

44:28former Canadian foreign minister Peter

44:30McKay was at that

44:32meeting he was somehow the victim Russia

44:35was uh was wronged by the

44:38west and uh I was at that conference and

44:42you know I remember sort of looking

44:44around at at other people who I knew in

44:46the room and sort of saying what's this

44:48all about you know is this is this

44:51leading somewhere or is this just the

44:53aggrieved president of

44:56Russia is evidence of uh somebody who's

44:59conspiracy-minded but it's also good

45:02politics for Putin and and his like in

45:04Russia because it explains their

45:06reverses in one country after another

45:09it's not uh in that in that explanation

45:11a rejection of Russia it's a it's a

45:14conspiracy by the

45:15US Victor yusenko was not the last Putin

45:19opponent to be

45:20poisoned my name is Alexander Lan I am

45:23for KGB and FB

45:25office Alexander fenko was a KGB agent

45:28who had actually met with Putin when he

45:30was named head of the Spy Service and

45:33had appealed to Putin to reform the

45:35organization when that did not happen

45:38laneno and other officers held a press

45:40conference accusing Putin's secret

45:42police of murdering

45:46people litvinenko was charged with

45:49crimes but acquitted and he fled to

45:51London England with his

45:54family back home in Russia litvinenko

45:57had now become a Kind of Traitor poster

45:59boy for Vladimir Putin's secret police

46:02they used his photograph for target

46:12practice Putin himself had always been

46:14very clear about what should happen to

46:16Russian traitors

46:24[Music]

46:31in November 2006 at the Millennium Hotel

46:33in London Alexander litvinenko was

46:36invited to a business meeting with two

46:38former KGB agents who were visiting the

46:41city Dimitri kovon and Andre

46:45lugovoy there were hotel security

46:48photographs of all

46:50three at a Rendevous in the hotel bar

46:53laneno was served tea that was spiked

46:55with Radioactive ionium

46:58210 litvinenko suffered an agonizing

47:01decline over several

47:02days he allowed this Photograph to be

47:05taken and he issued a statement that he

47:07had no doubt that Vladimir Putin had

47:10ordered his death

47:24alexand litvinenko died after 3 weeks of

47:29Agony at the funeral his radioactive

47:32body was buried in a lead-lined coffin

47:35he left a young son Anatoli and his wife

47:40Marina it's not only my story it's a

47:42story of Russia and how Russia has

47:46changed for all this period of time and

47:49how many other people have been killed

47:51and I believe all responsibilities

47:55is on the Russian government and a man

47:59who responsible for all of what happened

48:01to Russia now it's a Mr Putin

48:03[Music]

48:05himself Sergey magnitsky would become

48:08another prominent victim of the Putin

48:10regime magnitsky acted as a lawyer for

48:13the businessman Bill Browder Browder was

48:16expelled from Russia in

48:182005 then the offices of his Russian

48:21lawyers were raided by the

48:23police documents and corporate seals

48:26seized the in the raid were used to

48:28falsely re-register his $200 million

48:33companies magnitsky a funloving young

48:36family man documented the theft of

48:38browder's companies and publicly

48:40identified the government officials

48:43responsible he was arrested and then

48:46murdered in

48:49prison he was killed on November 16th

48:522009 I got the news the next

48:54morning and it was the most horrifying

48:58traumatic life-changing news I could

49:00have ever gotten he was effectively

49:02killed because he worked for me if

49:05Sergey hadn't been my lawyer he'd still

49:07be alive

49:08today and um when I was able to sort of

49:13uh get through the fog of Hysteria and

49:15heartbreak to think clearly I made a vow

49:19to his memory to his family into myself

49:22that I was going to put aside everything

49:23else I was doing in my life and devote

49:26all of my time time energy and resources

49:28going after the people who killed him to

49:30make sure they face Justice and for the

49:32last 15 years that's what I've been

49:34doing Mr Browder has traveled from

49:36overseas to be here today to testify

49:39about the Browder campaigned in the US

49:41Congress and in parliaments around the

49:43world to bring in strict new sanctions

49:46for Russian officials accused of Human

49:48Rights abuses many governments passed

49:51such laws named for Sergey

49:54magnuski those laws especially aggravate

49:56Vladimir Putin who blamed

50:06Browder by 2010 Putin had been credibly

50:09accused of responsibility for the deaths

50:11of Alexander laneno Sergey magnitsky and

50:15thousands of civilians in the city of

50:17gry

50:20chucha found

50:24[Music]

50:27And yet when he held a charity party in

50:29Russia he was enthusiastically applauded

50:32and cheered by an audience of invited

50:35western movie stars including Goldie Han

50:37and Kurt Russell Kevin Cosner and Sharon

50:41Stone my dreams

50:45came Putin could see that Western

50:47countries had short memories and

50:49attention spans and that Western leaders

50:52weren't about to stop him

50:55[Applause]

50:59[Music]

51:10many believe that the personal

51:12relationships of world leaders have a

51:13lot to do with how history unfolds and

51:16Vladimir Putin's 25-year interaction

51:19with foreign leaders provides a

51:21fascinating case study of that theory

51:26he recently invited India's narenda Modi

51:29to a private dinner at his home and Modi

51:32proclaimed himself very touched by the

51:35gesture China's Xi Jinping has called

51:38Putin his best friend and at the 2024

51:42bricks Summit Putin said that his

51:44friendships provided the basis for a new

51:46world

51:49order in the past his adversaries got a

51:52different treatment there was evidence

51:54Putin played psychological games with

51:55foreign leaders like German Chancellor

51:58Angela Merkel in this 2007 meeting the

52:01Russian president brought in his large

52:03labrador

52:07dog it's that classic

52:10KGB mindset everyone knew that Angela

52:13Merkel was terrified of dogs she had a

52:16phobia of dogs Putin knew that probably

52:18better than

52:19most he is well briefed he knows what

52:24people's buttons are and he pushes them

52:26he evidently wants to dominate all the

52:28time he wants to prove that he's the

52:32toughest guy in the

52:33room he always has to have someone to

52:39humiliate it speaks to a dark nature a a

52:43character flaw in that man that crosses

52:47all lines in terms of diplomacy and and

52:51just human human

52:53nature former French president franois

52:55Anand was also struck by Putin's

52:58psychological tactics in their personal

53:20meetings in 2008 Putin was prevented by

53:24constitutional term limits to run again

53:26for the presidency and so he temporarily

53:28stepped aside and allowed his longtime

53:31assistant Demitri MV to take the job

53:34Putin was appointed prime minister he

53:37takes the medv as his chair Waring

53:41person I remember my joke was at the

53:43time is that Russia is so patriarchal

53:45that even our first lady is a

53:47man so whatever medv was doing is only

53:50he's on a Long Leash or a short leash

53:52but it's a

53:55leash the US government misread the

53:58situation they thought Putin's power had

54:00been eclipsed and they could now deal

54:02directly with the seemingly more liberal

54:04mediative in a clumsy maneuver Secretary

54:07of State Hillary Clinton presented

54:09Russian foreign minister Sergey lavro

54:11with a button to symbolically reset

54:14relations with the us but mistranslated

54:17the word reset in

54:19Russia the Americans the Obama

54:21Administration fell into the kind of

54:23naive trap that they could build up

54:25Medvedev who by the way is a very short

54:28man and push down on Putin and that that

54:31would work as a strategy it it was never

54:34going to work and and it was

54:35extraordinary that they even pursued

54:38it while Dimitri medv was filling in as

54:41President of Russia the Middle East went

54:43through a period of

54:45upheaval the Arab Spring in 2011 Swept

54:49Away dictatorships in Tunisia and

54:52Egypt and then focused on the longtime

54:55Russian clients state of Libya as

54:58Western Powers moved to Aid the uprising

55:00against dictator muamar Gaddafi

55:03president medv decided to stand aside

55:05and not

55:09interfere Gaddafi was tracked down by

55:12Angry mobs as he tried to flee dragged

55:14out of a sewer pipe and murdered in

55:16front of the

55:19cameras this was reportedly a very

55:21important moment for Vladimir Putin who

55:24watched the videotape of this moment

55:25over at and over he became determined

55:28that he should not share the same

55:30eventual

55:32fate I think that was a key and seminal

55:35moment for him where he decided that he

55:37was going to do everything he could to

55:39crush any sort of opposition in Russia

55:41so that there was never any danger of a

55:43popular Uprising coming for him in the

55:46same way that it had come for

55:50[Applause]

55:52Gaddafi Vladimir vladimirov Putin

55:57in another fixed election in 2012 an

56:00apparently emotional Putin took the

56:02Russian presidency back from Dimitri

56:05Med in his new term he clearly decided

56:08to be much more aggressive with Western

56:10countries something that became apparent

56:13in his first private meeting with then

56:15French president franois Anand Putin

56:18complained about being surrounded by

56:19NATO missiles installed in

56:25Europe for

56:32[Music]

56:59Putin would soon go on the attack in

57:01Syria where he had long supported the

57:03dictator Bashar

57:05al-assad in the Civil War there the US

57:08President Barack Obama said it would be

57:10a red line if chemical weapons were used

57:13by Russia or their Syrian regime

57:17allies when chemical weapons were in

57:19fact imployed as all the world could see

57:22from TV images of children choking to

57:24death once again the Western World did

57:27almost

57:48nothing by 2013 Putin indeed turned his

57:52attention back to Ukraine and tried to

57:54force the pro-russian president Victor

57:56yanukovich to cancel a proposed new

57:59treaty with

58:01Europe just like the orange Revolution

58:04the majority pro-western population

58:06rebelled and again the maidan square was

58:09filled with anti-russian protesters egg

58:12Dawn by European and American

58:15politicians people of Ukraine this is

58:18your

58:24moment yeah ovich tried to put down the

58:27maidan protest with police violence and

58:34bullets the demonstrators held their

58:42ground the Putin back president

58:45yanukovich fled the country on a

58:47helicopter in the dead of

58:49night Putin saw Ukraine as a part of

58:52Russia and he saw eurom maidan as

58:55essentially the first part of a

58:57potential Uprising that could eventually

59:00end in him being uh removed from power

59:04so it was unacceptable to him that yidan

59:06had swept in and that these protests had

59:09removed his man from the

59:12job there were joyous celebrations in ke

59:15but Putin was plotting his

59:18revenge he had decided to break up

59:20Ukraine by seizing the Crimean peninsula

59:23in the South and the majority Russians

59:26speaking areas in the east of the

59:28country he deployed to Crimea an army of

59:31Russian soldiers without any markings on

59:33their uniforms who became known as The

59:36Little Green Men when he was asked about

59:38them Putin lied and said they had

59:40nothing to do with

59:44Russia Russian soldiers and

59:46russian-backed separatists began

59:47attacking Ukraine's Army in the Eastern

59:49Russian speaking areas of the daas

59:56Gary Kasparov was the longtime World

59:58chess champion who gave up chess to work

1:00:01in opposition to Vladimir Putin's regime

1:00:04he was arrested numerous times he saw

1:00:07Putin's Crimea move as a key turning

1:00:10point that was the best way for Bo Putin

1:00:13saw it to tell the West that you know

1:00:16he's no longer playing by the rules so

1:00:18annexing territory is just it's it's

1:00:20it's very important element of of

1:00:23destroying the world order but dictators

1:00:25they are opportunists

1:00:26even Hitler was a p or Stalin they they

1:00:29had ideology but still opportunity this

1:00:31is what what made them really strong so

1:00:34smell it grab it

1:00:39attack once again the Western response

1:00:42to Putin's action seemed weak Putin was

1:00:45still invited to the June 2014 70th

1:00:48anniversary commemorations of the

1:00:50Normandy invasion in France he was

1:00:53greeted as an honored guest by French

1:00:55president franu

1:00:57aland the new pro-western Ukrainian

1:00:59president Petro poreno was also

1:01:23there Putin did agree to have a brief

1:01:25meeting with poroshenko away from the

1:01:27cameras the Ukrainian president knew

1:01:30what he was up against I have several

1:01:33recommendation those who have a plan to

1:01:35meet with Putin Point number one don't

1:01:39trust Putin Putin is a KGB officer

1:01:42especially learn to

1:01:44lie second please don't be afraid of

1:01:48Putin if because if you're afraid of

1:01:51Putin this is feeding him and Putin go

1:01:54as far as we together allow him to go at

1:01:59a G20 meeting a few months later in

1:02:01Australia in contrast to previous

1:02:03Western passivity then Canadian Prime

1:02:05Minister Steven Harper tried a tough

1:02:08approach Vladimir Putin came into this

1:02:12private session with with other world

1:02:14leaders and went immediately to our

1:02:17Prime Minister Steven Harper who had

1:02:19been quite vocal about Putin and uh in

1:02:23his obvious plans for Crimea

1:02:26and he made a beline for him put his

1:02:29hand out to which you know prime

1:02:33minister Harper then looked at him and

1:02:35uh and said you need to get out of

1:02:39Crimea and Putin said we're not in

1:02:42Crimea that was the beginning of the end

1:02:45for Russia's participation in the G8

1:02:49because everybody in the room knew that

1:02:51he was

1:02:52lying it became clear that Putin

1:02:54basically didn't care what the leaders

1:02:56of Western Democratic countries said or

1:02:59did he thinks that Western leaders are

1:03:02gullible and shortlived they sort of

1:03:06colorful butterflies that that flatter

1:03:07around for a bit and and then get wiped

1:03:09out when winter comes in where whereas

1:03:12Putin whom we know has outlasted or is

1:03:15close to outlasting Stalin um doesn't

1:03:18have to worry about pesky things like

1:03:19elections and he he he knows what he'll

1:03:21be doing in two years time four years

1:03:24time well Putin has been very open about

1:03:26his dealings with foreign leaders he has

1:03:29been very secretive about his private

1:03:31[Music]

1:03:40life Putin has always kept his personal

1:03:43life very private and so Russians were

1:03:46surprised in 2013 when he and wife lud

1:03:48Milla casually strolled over to a camera

1:03:51after a ballet performance and announced

1:03:53they were

1:03:54divorcing well

1:03:57Putin said it was a mutual decision that

1:03:59they had simply Grown Apart because he

1:04:01was so

1:04:07busy

1:04:09hello welcome behind the decision was

1:04:12his yearslong relationship with a much

1:04:14younger woman that he had tried to

1:04:20hide Alina kabaya had come to fame as a

1:04:23Russian gymnast who won Gold old medals

1:04:26in international

1:04:28competitions Putin met her when he

1:04:30handed out one of those

1:04:32medals even after she was suspended from

1:04:35International competitions because she

1:04:37was caught using banned steroids and

1:04:39other substances her relationship with

1:04:41Putin

1:04:45deepened she actually became a member of

1:04:47the Duma Parliament for Putin's United

1:04:50Russia party then she dropped out of

1:04:53sight for a few years in which she was

1:04:55reported to to have become pregnant and

1:04:57given birth to several Putin

1:04:59children Putin was actually asked about

1:05:02his relationship to kabaya on a 2008

1:05:05visit to his friend Sylvio Berlusconi

1:05:07the Italian Prime

1:05:20Minister the Moscow newspaper that

1:05:23reported the Putin kabaya relationship

1:05:25was a immediately shut

1:05:27down Putin has been equally secretive

1:05:29about his two grown daughters from his

1:05:31first marriage both of whom have amassed

1:05:34vast

1:05:35fortunes the whole mentality of the

1:05:38current regime in the kremin has its

1:05:40roots back in the Soviet KGB it's this

1:05:43secret mentality that everything has to

1:05:46be sort of behind closed doors nothing

1:05:49can be revealed to the

1:05:51public the popular Russian opposition

1:05:53leader Alexi Nali was effective at

1:05:55winning a younger generation to the

1:05:57anti-putin side Putin's private life and

1:06:00incredible wealth became a major Target

1:06:02for

1:06:06him in a film called Putin's Palace Nali

1:06:10documented how many Putin Pals from his

1:06:12St Petersburg days had become fabulously

1:06:15wealthy and how many of them had

1:06:17streamed millions of dollars into

1:06:19building his giant opulent home

1:06:21constructed on a prime location

1:06:23overlooking the Black Sea

1:06:27in addition to Fabulous Gardens and

1:06:29helicopter pads the palace would include

1:06:32a private Arena where Putin could

1:06:34indulge one of his favorite hobbies

1:06:38hockey Russians were very familiar with

1:06:41Putin's Devotion to

1:06:43hockey they had seen him playing in

1:06:45games with former Russian NHL stars

1:06:48where he had somehow been able to score

1:06:50at least five goals the audience of that

1:06:53film about Putin's Palace was bigger

1:06:54than the audience of Russian State

1:06:56television channels that sort of showed

1:06:58to millions of people in Russia the true

1:07:00nature of of this regime that sort of

1:07:03purports to be this sort of patriotic

1:07:06government looking out for Russia's

1:07:07national interests but it's in fact just

1:07:10a bunch of Aging KGB officers who want

1:07:12to steal as much as they

1:07:14can after the 2014 invasion of Crimea it

1:07:18was becoming more and more dangerous to

1:07:20be an opposition figure in Russia there

1:07:22were some anti-war demonstrations led by

1:07:25one of the most popular opposition

1:07:26politicians in the country Boris

1:07:33nof nof was arrested numerous times but

1:07:36he persisted in his denunciations of

1:07:39Putin that seem to be gathering

1:07:41momentum Boris couldn't accept the fact

1:07:44that the country was in the hands of

1:07:46this criminal you know just l y it was

1:07:49like a

1:07:50physical contempt and I think it was

1:07:53vice versa I think this is Putin also SS

1:07:56that Boris was just different you know

1:07:58look at Putin this a dwarf [ __ ] and

1:08:02Boris Nam so the

1:08:08strong in February 2015 a stunning crime

1:08:12Boris nsof was gunned down on a bridge

1:08:15right in front of the Kremlin as he

1:08:17walked home from work they just found

1:08:19the easiest way to deal with him it was

1:08:22a shocking effect but surprise

1:08:25I don't think even he was I think it's

1:08:27just again

1:08:29he I'm sure he knew he was doomed but

1:08:32just he just didn't want to to show

1:08:36[Music]

1:08:41weakness the opponents of the Putin

1:08:44regime began receiving attacks with an

1:08:46iodine likee green D called

1:08:49zelonka Alexi naly was hit several times

1:08:53along with journalists

1:08:55opposition political figures including

1:08:58Putin's former prime minister Mikel

1:09:01casanov there was a number of such

1:09:03signals to me that I should stop that

1:09:06that activity Boris NSO was killed I was

1:09:10under pressure just to to to give me an

1:09:13understanding that uh that I could be

1:09:17next the threats got more intense

1:09:20casanov along with Vladimir karura were

1:09:23featured in a sniper video on the

1:09:25Instagram page of one of Putin's

1:09:30allies Karam murza was poisoned twice

1:09:33once in 2015 and again in 2017 he was

1:09:36hospitalized in a coma that lasted for

1:09:39days but he

1:09:43survived then in 2020 Alexi naly was

1:09:46poisoned with a toxic radioactive

1:09:49substance called novich chuk he barely

1:09:51survived and was flown out to Germany

1:09:54for medical treatment

1:09:57as he recuperated in Germany he set out

1:09:59to document how such poisonings were

1:10:02carried

1:10:08out with the help of investigative

1:10:10journalists at the bellingcat

1:10:12organization Nali was able to show in

1:10:14astonishing detail how he had been

1:10:16followed around by Russian secret agents

1:10:19for months before he had been

1:10:21poisoned it's it's just something that a

1:10:23normal human mind cannot Pro process but

1:10:26it is the reality of Vladimir Putin's

1:10:28Russia that there is a government

1:10:31operated death squad inside the security

1:10:34services the main task of which the only

1:10:37task of which is to physically eliminate

1:10:40political opponents of the current

1:10:42Russian

1:10:45government after his embarrassing

1:10:48Revelations about Putin's poison Squad

1:10:50in 2021 Alexi naali decided to return to

1:10:53Russia even though was sure to face

1:10:56imprisonment

1:10:58there as a citizen of Russia he says I

1:11:02have the absolute right to return home

1:11:05there was a debate about whether it was

1:11:06a courageous or fool hearty decision he

1:11:09was arrested at the airport on arrival

1:11:12gave his wife a last kiss goodbye and

1:11:15then was given one prison sentence after

1:11:17another on a long series of

1:11:23charges with his major critic silenced

1:11:25in July 2021 Putin started to prepare

1:11:29the ground for his invasion of Ukraine

1:11:31echoing his words of 30 years

1:11:35before it began with an astonishing

1:11:385,000-word personal essay in Russian

1:11:40newspapers that reviewed a thousand

1:11:42years of Russian history from the time

1:11:45of St Vladimir founder of the Russian

1:11:47Orthodox Church the modern Vladimir

1:11:50strongly argued that all Russian

1:11:52speakers were part of one great nation

1:11:55and suggested that Ukraine was not a

1:11:57real country even that the Ukrainian

1:11:59language was not a real

1:12:01language I thought it was an indication

1:12:04um that he had a very different course

1:12:06planned both for Russia and for Ukraine

1:12:09it may be important to note that he sent

1:12:11that article to every soldier in the

1:12:13Russian

1:12:18army so he intended this view of history

1:12:21and this kind of paranoid nostalgic um

1:12:24Imperial IST view of the past to be the

1:12:27ideology of the modern Russian

1:12:35army immediately before The Invasion

1:12:37came the angry Putin speech that put a

1:12:39similar message in a much more

1:12:41threatening

1:12:52manner the anger at Ukraine is the anger

1:12:55a country that has successfully overcome

1:12:58exactly the kind of autocratic

1:12:59kleptocracy that he has in Russia and

1:13:03Putin is afraid that Russians will make

1:13:05that kind of decision in Russia he wants

1:13:07to eliminate Ukraine as a country and as

1:13:09a democracy um that's what threatens him

1:13:12is the idea the idea of sovereignty the

1:13:15idea of freedom and the idea of

1:13:16democracy for

1:13:19Ukraine as Putin surrounded Ukraine with

1:13:22armored divisions and prepared his

1:13:24invasion

1:13:25Western leaders like France's Emanuel

1:13:27macron and Germany's Olaf Schultz

1:13:30traveled to Moscow to try to talk him

1:13:32out of military

1:13:34action he rebuffed their efforts

1:14:18[Music]

1:14:20when Putin launched his fullscale

1:14:21invasion of Ukraine in February 2022

1:14:25it didn't go as

1:14:37planned Russia's latest invasion of

1:14:40Ukraine began in the early hours of

1:14:42February 24th with a barrage of rocket

1:14:45and missile

1:14:46[Music]

1:14:49attacks on that first day hundreds of

1:14:52Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine the

1:14:55tanks attacked from Crimea in the south

1:14:57towards the city of Heron from the East

1:14:59towards the city of harv and from the

1:15:02north down towards the capital

1:15:05Kei the tank columns were stopped in

1:15:08their

1:15:08[Music]

1:15:10tracks the ukrainians used Western

1:15:13Supply Javelin and other anti-tank

1:15:15missiles to Target

1:15:19them Putin clearly expected to capture

1:15:22or kill the Ukrainian president vadir

1:15:25zinski or that he would flee in Terror

1:15:27instead zalinsky announced that he and

1:15:30his government were staying in place to

1:15:32lead the

1:15:36resistance Ukrainian civilians armed

1:15:39themselves to fight back against

1:15:40Vladimir

1:15:44Putin the Guardians Luke Harding has

1:15:46covered the war from the beginning

1:15:49there's a paradox at the heart of this

1:15:51story uh Putin thinks he's a brilliant

1:15:53spy and he was told by Russia's

1:15:55intelligence agencies that ukrainians

1:15:58would would welcome Uh Russian troops

1:16:01and and cheer them applaud them as they

1:16:03came in on tanks and in fact that they

1:16:05fought back uh big time and and Putin

1:16:08pretty quickly discovered that he was

1:16:10not battling against the sort of small

1:16:13unpopular corrupt pro-western government

1:16:16of Vladimir zilinski but fighting an

1:16:18entire nation of about 40 million

1:16:20[Music]

1:16:23people in the early days of the invasion

1:16:26there were a handful of anti-war

1:16:28demonstrations across Russia but they

1:16:30were mercilessly crushed by Putin's

1:16:33police all Independent Media in Russia

1:16:35was shut down by the

1:16:39government all that remained were

1:16:41government controlled propaganda TV

1:16:43programs where the hosts had promised a

1:16:46quick

1:16:47[Music]

1:16:53victory

1:17:04for for many years Dimitri muratov ran

1:17:07the main independent Russian newspaper

1:17:09Nova gazetta

1:17:34in the early days of the war it was

1:17:36still possible to find dissenting voices

1:17:38in the streets of

1:17:47Moscow now that is much more difficult

1:17:50the CBC was expelled from Russia shortly

1:17:52after the invasion but we were able to

1:17:54get gather a few young people together

1:17:56to carefully share their views of Putin

1:17:58the only leader they have ever

1:18:00known I fully trust our Mr Putin and I

1:18:05fully trust um God the government

1:18:07structures and I um definitely

1:18:11support well all the things that are

1:18:13happening in Russia currently

1:18:24[Music]

1:18:26Russia recently announced a change in

1:18:28school history textbooks gone under any

1:18:31criticisms of the Soviet past instead

1:18:34there are glowing endorsements of the

1:18:35words and actions of Vladimir

1:18:38Putin you've got textbooks being changed

1:18:41you've got children being taught uh to

1:18:44hate the West to view the West as as an

1:18:47aberration and and you've got a complete

1:18:50whitewashing of history on Putin's

1:18:53behalf where has essentially Rewritten

1:18:56literally Rewritten

1:18:58history documentary filmmaker Vitali

1:19:00manky has Revisited the early uncritical

1:19:03film he made about Putin he now sees all

1:19:06Russians as complicit in Putin's march

1:19:08to dictatorship he is entitled his

1:19:11documentary Putin's Witnesses

1:19:28Putin has a number of major advantages

1:19:30in his fight against

1:19:32Ukraine with a far larger population he

1:19:35has sent millions of young men into the

1:19:37battle and can avoid the normal media

1:19:39coverage when according to Nato over

1:19:42700,000 have become

1:19:46casualties then there are nuclear

1:19:48weapons Russia has the world's largest

1:19:51collection when Putin announced the

1:19:53Ukraine invasion he also made a show of

1:19:56instructing his military commanders to

1:19:58place the Russian nuclear forces on

1:20:03alert Putin gave a chilling pre-war

1:20:06interview about the prospect of nuclear

1:20:08war

1:20:28Putin's threats brought a wave of

1:20:30speculation about his mental state about

1:20:32whether he is unbalanced enough to use a

1:20:35nuclear

1:20:36device Ambassador John Bolton negotiated

1:20:39with Putin about nuclear weapons he says

1:20:42the man he knew then was not crazy I

1:20:45think he's about as coldblooded as you

1:20:47can get he would say in English

1:20:50sometimes well you have your logic we'll

1:20:52have ours we'll see which one prevails

1:20:55uh but I don't think he's a Fanatic in

1:20:57that respect and I think if you uh

1:21:00overstate your concern about whether for

1:21:03example he'd resort to nuclear weapons

1:21:05he wins just by Bluff Putin has

1:21:09explicitly stated he is not

1:21:21bluffing Russian newspaper editor

1:21:24Demetri matatov was a co-winner of the

1:21:26Nobel Peace Prize in

1:21:282023 he is not so sure Putin's nuclear

1:21:31threats can be

1:21:42discounted the Americans have warned

1:21:44Putin that there would be a catastrophic

1:21:46military response if he used any nuclear

1:21:49weapon he's never going to do it because

1:21:52Moscow would be a parking lot

1:21:56and Putin is a lot of things and there's

1:21:58lots of adjectives to describe him but

1:22:01he's not crazy in the true sense that he

1:22:04doesn't want to survive he's not

1:22:06suicidal what role will Donald Trump

1:22:09play in this tug of war it has become

1:22:11apparent that he wants to pressure

1:22:13Ukrainian president zalinski to accept a

1:22:15peace deal in which Russia gets to hold

1:22:18on to the Ukrainian territories it has

1:22:20conquered and Ukraine gets some kind of

1:22:22extra security guarantees from the West

1:22:25to prevent Russia from invading again

1:22:28polls show ukrainians are ready to make

1:22:30a

1:22:31deal now majority of ukrainians favor an

1:22:36end to the to the conflict even if it

1:22:38doesn't mean the restoration of the

1:22:41territories if the United States can

1:22:43force a deal U I think uh you know the

1:22:48Ukrainian side will will go along

1:23:08on the Russian side there is very little

1:23:10pressure on Putin to make a deal

1:23:12especially because all opposition to him

1:23:15has been wiped

1:23:20out during his two years in prison Alexi

1:23:23Nali continued his spirited resistance

1:23:25to Putin until his sudden death was

1:23:28announced in February

1:23:312024 small crowds of brave people

1:23:34attended Memorial demonstrations for him

1:23:36but his death was a serious blow to the

1:23:39opposition movements in

1:23:41Russia like naali Vladimir kerah had

1:23:45been arrested and sentenced to 25 years

1:23:47for his opposition to the

1:23:49war God bless

1:23:51sir he was released in a prisoner exch

1:23:54change in August

1:23:562024 and has gone on to meet many

1:23:58Western leaders in his ongoing campaign

1:24:01of opposition to Vladimir

1:24:03Putin he fights alongside nal's Widow

1:24:07Julia I have absolutely no doubt on this

1:24:10as a historian myself uh Vladimir Putin

1:24:12will be remembered in history in the

1:24:15same line of names as uh Hitler and

1:24:18Stalin and musolini that's exactly the

1:24:20type of tyrant that he is a tyrant that

1:24:25disregards the rights of his own people

1:24:29and it tramples on the Civilized Norms

1:24:31of international

1:24:32behavior for Liberal democracies we're

1:24:36back where we were at the beginning of

1:24:37the of the Cold War we're back to

1:24:39containment where there's no point in

1:24:41trying to understand Russia the answer

1:24:43is simply to contain it to invest in in

1:24:46defense and Military production to stop

1:24:47it from overrunning other countries the

1:24:50the problem with this theory is is

1:24:51someone called Donald

1:24:53Trump he is more in the deal making mode

1:24:56where where big Powers cut deals quite

1:24:59often over the heads of smaller powers

1:25:01and Putin would love a world where he

1:25:03can sit down with with Donald Trump over

1:25:05there XI jingping over there and they

1:25:08can have they can look at a map of the

1:25:09world and they can divide it up between

1:25:11them that's what he

1:25:15wants what will happen when the time

1:25:18finally comes for Vladimir Putin to

1:25:20leave the stage

1:25:3025 years ago Putin arrived in the

1:25:32Russian presidency in a wave of Hope for

1:25:35the

1:25:35future his critics worry about what will

1:25:38be left in his

1:25:41wake when Putin is gone he will leave

1:25:45behind him a wasteland of

1:25:49cynicism

1:25:50indifference and vast moral crisis

1:25:55Russia will have to to to to live for

1:25:58Generations rebuilding itself redeeming

1:26:01itself recouping at least bits and

1:26:03pieces of trust of not only the world

1:26:08Community but of its own

1:26:12people 8 years before he became Russian

1:26:15President Vladimir Putin outlined his

1:26:17belief that all russian-speaking people

1:26:20should be part of the same country

1:26:27that belief led to his seizure of

1:26:29Crimea to building a bridge joining it

1:26:32to Russia and then to the massive

1:26:34destruction of 20% of Ukraine in a war

1:26:37that killed hundreds of thousands that

1:26:40challenged the world order and the

1:26:42resolve of the western

1:26:46Powers his drive to rebuild the Russian

1:26:49Empire threatens all his neighboring

1:26:52countries and it is far from clear that

1:26:54the Democratic world has the political

1:26:57will to stop him

1:27:12[Music]

1:27:18[Music]