Putin, Russia and the West
13/01/2012 11:52:00
This month I.B. Tauris published Angus Roxburgh’s The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia. The book charts the dramatic fight for Russia's future under Vladimir Putin, drawing on dozens of exclusive interviews in Russia where Roxburgh worked for a time as a Kremlin insider advising Putin on press relations, as well as working in Russia as the Sunday Times’ Moscow correspondent in the mid-1980s and the BBC’s Moscow correspondent during the Yeltsin years. The Strongman is also a tie-in with a television series, Putin, Russia and the West, for which Roxburgh was chief consultant. Made by Norma Percy and the team at Brook Lapping behind the multi-award-winning documentaries The Death of Yugoslavia, The Second Russian Revolution and Iran & the West, the four-part series begins on Thursday 19th January, 9pm, BBC2.
Brook Lapping’s Press Release and Programme Information
Vladimir Putin, after eight years as President of Russia and four more as Prime Minister, is stubbornly holding onto power. He has announced his intention to return as President and declared his party the winner in parliamentary elections that are widely seen as fraudulent. In December, tens of thousands took to the streets in Moscow in the largest protests since Putin came to power. Putin began his career as a KGB spy. But when he became President, he made himself a valued ally of the West. How did he do it? And what made Washington and London turn against him? For the first time Putin’s top colleagues – and the Western statesmen who eventually clashed with him – tell the inside story of one of the world’s most powerful men.
Programme 1: Taking Control Thursday
19 January 2011, BBC2, 9pm
George W Bush meets Putin in June 2001 and declares he looked him in the eye and ‘got a sense of his soul’. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice recall their discomfort. But Rice, the only Bush adviser in the private talks, reveals that, three months before 9/11, Putin gave Bush a prophetic warning about Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban. After 9/11, Putin describes how he convinced his shocked colleagues that Russia should align with the West. Sergei Ivanov, Russian’s Defense Minister, tells how the Taliban secretly offered to join forces with Russia against America. He says he rejected their offer with the terse English phrase “F*** off.” At home Putin has become increasingly authoritarian. Mikhail Kasyanov, then Russia’s Prime Minister, recalls a meeting where “all the oligarchs present almost hid under the table in fear.” Russia’s richest man at that time, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and some of his closest colleagues, describe how he accused a close Putin aide of corruption – and ended up in prison.
Programme 2: Democracy Threatens
Thursday 26 January 2011, BBC2, 9pm
‘Democracy Threatens’ includes an extraordinary interview with retiring Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. He was widely thought to be responsible for murder, corruption and sanctions-busting. He tells how, in the 2004 election, he set about getting his chosen successor elected President – with the help of Putin and his Kremlin advisers. The opposition candidate, Victor Yushchenko, tells what it was like to be poisoned during the election campaign. It won him many voters and exit polls gave him a clear lead. But the Putin/Kuchma-backed candidate was still declared the winner. This election-rigging sparked the Orange Revolution.Kremlin officials tell how they made sure that Putin wouldn't face a similar revolution at home. Critics of Putin, including the British ambassador, were intimidated or even murdered and tens of thousands of young Russians were mobilised to fight the threat of democracy.
Programme 3: War
Thursday 3 February 2011, BBC2, 9pm
‘War’ tells how in August 2008, Russia went to war with America’s ally, Georgia. In-depth interviews with Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev and with Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili, reveal why each decided it was necessary to make war on the other. The programme charts the intense negotiations that preceded the conflict. President Bush tried to secure NATO membership for Georgia. But he was out-maneuvered by France and Germany, determined not to provoke Russia. When the war started, Washington faced a dilemma. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates describe what happened inside the National Security Council as President Bush considered whether to send in ground troops to save Georgia’s capital. They reveal just how near to war the conflict brought the two nuclear super-powers.
Programme 4: New Start
Thursday 9 February 2011, BBC2, 9pm
‘New Start’ tells the inside story of two relationships: Barack Obama's campaign to win over Russia’s new President Dmitry Medvedev, and Medvedev's own complex dealings with Vladimir Putin. Obama became president determined to rid the world of nuclear weapons. To begin the process he needed Russian help. So he set out to reset relations with Russia. Ignoring Putin, whom many considered still in charge, he concentrated on Medvedev. Top officials on both sides take viewers deep inside the negotiations. They describe how a phone call between the two young lawyer-presidents finally clinched the agreement – which cut their countries’ nuclear arsenals in half. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says: ‘No previous treaty between our Countries has ever been directly negotiated by our Presidents. But inside Russia, Medvedev has a harder time. He responded to the 2008 global financial crisis by setting out to make Russia into a modern democratic economy. He made little progress. He told Obama that Russia's most famous dissident, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, would get a fair trial. It did not happen. In the end, Medvedev stepped aside and nominated Putin to be their party’s presidential candidate for the 2012 election. Top Kremlin insiders, including Medvedev and Putin, tell how the deal was done – and how it set in train a process that made Vladimir Putin look vulnerable for the first time.
Series Producer: Norma Percy
Executive Producer: Brian Lapping
Series Director: Paul Mitchell
Read Luke Harding's review of The Strongman in the Guardian and Mary Dejevsky's review in the Independent.
Watch BBC's Nick Higham interview with Angus Roxburgh.