Putin's life

On the 9th of August 1999 Russia's

president Boris Yeltsin announced a new

acting prime minister most Russians had

never heard of him and in a poll just

two percent said that they'd vote for

him to become president exactly one

month after yeltsin's announcement a

massive explosion in an apartment

building just half an hour's drive from

the Kremlin killed more than 100 people

less than four days after that another

apartment bombing less than four miles

away killed 119 people the morning after

the second bombing the speaker of the

Russian Parliament paid tribute to the

victims that had died in the city of

volgodons but he'd made a mistake Volga

donk is 700 miles away from Moscow where

the bombing had actually happened so

when a car bomb actually exploded in

volgodonsk three days later things got

even weirder but there was no time for

questions Russia was under attack the

new prime minister quickly ordered a

massive bombing campaign against

separatists in the war-torn region of

chechnya even declaring that we'll waste

them in the Outhouse six months later

the new Prime Minister was elected

president by a grateful Russian Nation

his name was Vladimir Putin and since he

took power he has not let go he has had

his enemies killed started Wars and

destabilized the global order but for

someone so dangerous and so important we

know surprisingly little about him who

is Vladimir Putin really why did he

invade Ukraine what's the real story

behind those apartment bombings and why

is he actually weaker than ever

the Moscow apartment bombings are a key

part of Vladimir Putin's rise to power

and don't worry I'm going to talk more

about them but to truly understand how

he became the man he is today you need

to understand the organization that

molded him the case kdb the KGB was one

of the main instruments of Soviet state

power it operated Totally Above the Law

spying on dissidents tearing out

Espionage and acting as a secret police

force and because the Soviet Union had

lots of enemies the KGB needed lots of

Agents one of the best places to find

them was in the country's most

prestigious universities that's exactly

where they found a young law student at

Leningrad State University named

Vladimir Putin they waited until he

graduated before recruiting him in 1975.

lots of KGB agents joined because they

basically had no choice when your

country's notorious spy agency asks you

to join it's kind of hard to say no but

Putin joined because he wanted to he

spent his first few years with KGB

pushing papers in a gloomy office in

Leningrad but his first Big Break

arrived when in the early 1980s he was

summoned to Moscow to attend the

agency's elite foreign intelligence

training institute that's right it was

basically a professional development

course for Soviet spies after he learned

how to be a better spy Putin was

assigned to Dresden deep in the heart of

East Germany as the boundary between

communism and capitalism East Germany

was a rich source of Cold War Intrigue

and information this is building number

four Angelica Strassa today it's the

regional HQ for an esoteric spiritual

movement but during the Cold War it was

the local KGB station and for the last

five years of the 1980s it was Vladimir

Putin's office his mission was to

recruit Communist party and Stasi

officials compromise visiting westerners

and travel undercover to West Germany it

also involved stealing Western

technology despite being first to space

and shocking the West with Sputnik by

the 1980s the Eastern Bloc was lagging

way behind the West after five years in

Dresden Putin returned to Russia and to

his old University in Leningrad even

though his cover story was that he

worked as an aide to the dean everyone

knew that Putin was still working for

the KGB spying on and recruiting

students of course there wouldn't be a

next generation of crack KGB spies

working undercover to steal Western

technology and NATO Secrets because the

Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 brought

undone by failed reforms and the

pressure of trying to keep up with the

United States Putin could see the end

coming before it arrived by then he'd

quit the KGB to go work for one of his

old law professors a guy named Anatoly

Subhash .Subchach was one of the leading

voices calling for Democratic reforms in

the Soviet Union after the Cold War

ended he was elected mayor of Leningrad

which by then had reverted to its

original name of Saint Petersburg Putin

got a job working for sub check at City

Hall and he saw how bad things really

were the decline in living standards in

Russia after the cold war is hard to

comprehend life expectancy at Birth

plunged by more than five years between

1990 and 1994. things got so bad that

there are stories of people paying for

things with bricks because they were

worth more than Russian rubles at the

time even for the millions of Russian

people who by the end hated the

Communist system the collapse of the

Soviet Union brought chaos and

humiliation Russians went from living in

a country that went toe-to-toe with the

United States as a superpower to needing

handouts after his boss Anatoly sobchak

was voted out in 1996 Putin went to

Moscow there for reasons that have never

really been explained he suddenly

started moving up really fast in his

career he got a job in the presidential

Property Management Department at the

Kremlin it sounds like a boring admin

job but it actually gave Putin lots of

Leverage to Grant or turn down favors to

other political insiders he must have

done a lot of effective networking

because his next job after that was as

Deputy Chief of Boris yeltsin's

presidential staff he was obviously busy

but he still somehow found the time to

get what's basically the Russian

equivalent of a PhD in economics Putin's

dissertation was about maximizing the

value of mineral resources in his home

region it's more than 200 pages of

discussion about stuff like the quality

of gravel pits in Russia there are real

questions about whether he even wrote it

but believe it or not Putin's PhD wasn't

really about education it was about

ticking the boxes he needed in order to

keep advancing in his career after

working for Yeltsin Putin became

director of the FSB the intelligence

agency which replaced the KGB how did

Putin go from being a mid-ranking KGB

officer in East Germany to running the

successor agency less than 10 years

later maybe there's no conspiracy here

maybe he was just really great at time

management and really great at all the

jobs he was given or maybe his bosses

really liked the dissertation he wrote

but if you worked in Russian politics at

the time you could only climb the ladder

as quickly as Putin did if someone even

higher wanted it to happen however he

did it Putin quickly earned yeltsin's

trust his timing was perfect after 30

years in Soviet and Russian politics

which included surviving a coup Yeltsin

was done he was extremely pessimistic

about the problems Russia faced and his

bad Health which was exacerbated by his

drinking meant that he just didn't have

the energy to try and fix them so Yeltin

believed his final act in public life

should be to choose the right successor

someone who could do what he had failed

to do rebuild Russia into a world power

he had a few candidates in mind one of

them was his Deputy Premier Boris namsov

namsov was very different from Putin for

start he had years of actual political

leadership experience having served as a

provincial governor and Member of

Parliament he was also by the standards

of Russian politics a liberal Democrat

instead of looking to the Past for ideas

on how to reform Russia he looked to the

West at one stage Boris Yeltsin

introduced him to Bill Clinton as his

chosen successor everything appeared to

be on track until fate intervened

the day the ruble fell 20 Vogue magazine

held a party for four thousand Financial

crises are complicated this one is no

exception the basic story is that

another Market crisis this one

originating in Asia reduced the price of

Commodities like oil gas and metals that

the Russian economy was dependent on as

the country's Revenue sharply decreased

so did its ability to repay its debts

which were mostly in the form of bonds

held by Foreign investors on August 17

1998 the Russian government defaulted on

its debts and was forced to devalue the

ruble it was a disaster for millions of

Russians Yeltsin sacked the Prime

Minister and his entire cabinet but even

that didn't contain the Fallout Boris

Nemsov had staked his political

legitimacy on making Russia's economy

look more like the West so when it

collapsed he got blamed he went from

receiving more than 50 percent in a

presidential poll to being one of the

most hated men in the country in

addition to killing nemsov's hopes of

being yeltsin's successor the financial

crisis accelerated yeltsin's desire to

find a replacement and stand down and

eventually just one real Choice remained

Vladimir Putin but Yeltsin and his inner

circle had a problem

the public had no idea who Putin was it

was one thing to name him prime minister

Yeltsin could do that no problem but

Russia was meant to be a democracy and

in a democracy you can't just snap your

fingers and make someone the president

they actually had to win an election

Putin had no profile he wasn't a

reformer like Nemsov if people had even

heard of him they probably Associated

him with the KGB if Russian Elites

wanted him to win an election they

needed people to know who he was which

brings us back to those bombings I

mentioned at the start of the video

they're a key part of Vladimir Putin's

rise to power so let's construct a

timeline

on the 9th of August 1999 Boris Yeltsin

named Vladimir Putin acting prime

minister 26 days later on the night of

September 4th 1999 a truck blew up a

barracks in Bunatsuk a Garrison town on

Russia's border with the Breakaway

region of chechnya just after midnight

on September 9th a bomb went off in the

basement of an apartment building in

southeast Moscow the FSB the internal

security agency that until recently had

been run by Vladimir Putin reported that

items removed from the scene contained

traces of TNT and another explosive

called RDX government officials started

blaming Chechen terrorists for the

attack almost immediately just after

midnight on September 13th authorities

were called to check on reports of

suspicious activity at an apartment

building less than four miles away from

the previous bombing site they didn't

find anything but just a few hours later

a massive Car Bomb destroyed a

nine-story building on the cashier

Sequoia highway three days later another

bomb blew up near an apartment building

in the southern city of volgedansk the

whole nation terrified on the evening of

September 22nd several residents from

the city of Razan about 120 miles

Southeast of Moscow saw a white sedan

pull up in front of their apartment

building

the car's license plate had been altered

the residents also noticed two men

removing several large sacks from the

trunk and carrying them into the

basement before driving away at speed

when local police arrived they found

three large sacks wired to a Detonator

and explosive timer the bomb was defused

and sent away for testing the next

morning the 23rd Putin congratulated the

local residents on their vigilance and

lauded the security forces for foiling

what could have been another deadly

attack that same evening police

apprehended the men who'd been seen

loading the sacks into the basement when

they were questioned they produced FSB

identification cards remember the FSB is

the agency that ultimately replaced the

KGB and Vladimir Putin before he became

prime minister was the FSB director a

short time later A call came from FSB

headquarters the men were to be released

the next morning September 24th the

director of the FSB appeared on national

TV suddenly the story had changed it

wasn't a foiled terrorist attack it was

an FSB training exercise meant to test

public awareness and the sacks in the

basement didn't contain explosives they

just had sugar in them the FSB was

trying to sweep the whole incident under

the rug and it might have worked until

the results came back from the lab the

analysis which was conducted by the

local branch of the FSB showed that the

sacs actually contained RDX the same

explosive that was found at the scene of

the bombing at gurinova Street two weeks

earlier but RDX wasn't something you

could make at home in fact there was

only one place you could get it in all

of Russia a heavily guarded facility in

the city of perm near the Ural Mountains

and about 1500 miles from chechnya

[Music]

it's details like this that make the

official story that the bombings were

all orchestrated by Chechen terrorists

hard to believe but the time for asking

questions was over because at the same

time as Putin was praising the residents

of Razan for their bravery Russian

warplanes were already launching massive

airstrikes on the capital of chechnya

ordinary Russians were scared their

country had gone from being a superpower

to a basket case people were going

hungry losing their savings and dying in

their homes Vladimir Putin promised an

end to the chaos under him order would

be restored people didn't know about the

gaps in the official story or if they

did they pretended not to notice on

March 26 2000 Vladimir Putin was elected

president with 53 percent of the vote

the people of Russia might not have

realized it but they just made a very

fateful decision Russia at the present

time is at a crossroad the Communists

have been defeated but the ideas of

Freedom now are on trial Putin's first

major crisis came less six months into

his presidency this is the curse a

nuclear-powered Oscar 2 class submarine

at the time it was the biggest cruise

missile submarine in the world it was

said to be virtually Unsinkable so it

was the obvious choice to lead Russia's

first major Naval exercise in more than

10 years these exercises were basically

a way for Vladimir Putin to show

adversaries like nato in the United

States that after tumultuous few years

Russia was once again a military power

at about 11 A.M on August 12 2000 deep

in the barren sea the crew of The Curse

were given clearance to launch two dummy

Torpedoes at the Peter the Great battle

cruiser but the Torpedoes detonated

prematurely at 11 29 a.m nearby

Norwegian seismic detectors registered

an explosion two minutes later another

much larger explosion was detected the

Kursk sank to the seabed amazingly the

U.S defense secretary William Cohen knew

about the accident before the Kremlin

the International Community quickly

offered assistance to try and save any

crew who might still be alive but the

Russian government refused all offers of

help publicly they said they had

everything under control in reality they

knew the curse and its crew were in big

trouble it took 16 hours to locate the

Kursk after it sank and two days before

officials publicly acknowledged that

anything was wrong when they did they

said it was just experiencing minor

technical difficulties in truth any crew

members who survived the initial blast

were rapidly running out of air where

was Vladimir Putin in all this well he

was on vacation he actually wasn't even

informed the accident until the day

after it happened the Navy kept telling

him that they had it under control and

that there was a strong possibility that

the accident had been caused by a NATO

vessel if the cover-up was bad the

rescue attempts were even worse the

Russian Navy repeatedly failed in their

attempts to get into the submarine from

his seaside resort Putin finally agreed

to accept outside help but it was too

late by the time Norwegian divers

finally opened a hatch to the submarine

there were no survivors on August 21st

the Russian Navy finally forced to admit

the truth to the public the Russian

media strongly criticized the government

responses inept and their explanations

as totally unreliable Putin decided to

meet with family members a full 10 days

after the sinking access to the meeting

was tightly controlled State media's

broadcast of the meeting showed only

Putin speaking but inside the reaction

was furious two journalists who got in

by posing as family members witnessed

distraught widows and mothers screaming

at the president and demanding to know

who would be punished for the disaster

50 Cent

s when one extremely emotional mother

wouldn't stop interrupting a nurse

popped up behind her and forcibly

injected her with a sedative Days Later

Larry King asked Putin what happened

this is how he reacted

the cursed Fiasco was terrible for Putin

because it challenged the main part of

his appeal keeping Russians safe and

restoring the country's status as a

great power great Powers don't lose

their best ships and training exercises

and his response made it look like he

didn't really care about the people who

died or the effect it had on their

families still for the first few years

of his presidency most world leaders

either didn't see that side of Putin or

didn't care I found it to be very

straightforward

and trustworthy I am confident that this

new level of cooperation between NATO's

members and Russia will now change the

world and for the bit was Putin the KGB

Mastermind just tricking these world

leaders into thinking he was a good guy

I think the truth is much more

complicated and a lot of it has to do

with NATO remember NATO was created in

order to contain Soviet influence in

Europe so after the end of the Cold War

most people believed the alliance had

served its purpose Western policymakers

didn't see any real reason to keep

expanding it they preferred to focus

their energies on encouraging Russia to

become a democratic capitalist country

but that began to change in the

mid-1990s now we have to finish what

America started four years ago welcoming

Hungary Poland and the Czech Republic

into our alliance if you look around at

who's in the room today you can see that

they are more than willing Eastern

European countries which had spent

decades under Soviet influence were

suspicious of Russia's long-term motives

they wanted to join while Russia was

still weak because they knew it wouldn't

be weak forever polish officials even

told a team of researchers that if you

don't let us into NATO we're getting

nuclear weapons and Bill Clinton and his

team of idealistic foreign policy

officials helped make it happen just as

he promised Poland Hungary and the Czech

Republic all eventually joined the

alliance this was basically Russia's

worst nightmare but it couldn't do

anything about it the next round of NATO

expansion in 2004 added seven more

countries almost all had been part of

the Eastern Bloc the three Baltic

countries Estonia Latvia and Lithuania

were part of the Soviet Union itself now

they were part of the West at least in

geopolitical terms for Putin this shift

in the global order was part provocation

part existential threat NATO was

creeping up to his country's doorstep

which threatened to permanently relegate

Russia to the status of second tier

power in its own region it had to be

stopped Putin wanted to undermine NATO

and destabilize the U.S LED World Order

in his mind I'm sure he also wanted to

inflict some pain on the countries that

in his eyes had humiliated Russia at the

end of the Cold War but he knew there

was no way Russia could win a war

against NATO to achieve his goals Putin

would need to find another strategy in

late 2004 ukrainians went to the polls

to elect a president they weren't just

choosing between two guys with virtually

indistinguishable policies they were

choosing between two different visions

of what kind of country Ukraine should

be in one corner was the pro-russian

incumbent prime minister Victor

Yanukovych in the other Corner was the

ProNato pro eu opposition leader Victor

Yoshinko the man who won would tilt

Ukraine closer to the west or closer to

Russia the future of the country was on

the line the Ukrainian Parliament had

already agreed to the formation of a

free trade zone with Russia Belarus and

Kazakhstan and Yanukovych had promised

to make Russian an official language in

Ukraine you better believe that Vladimir

Putin was watching closely the first

round of voting was held on October 31st

it was in incredibly tight because

neither candidate got more than 50

percent of the votes a runoff ballot was

held on November 21st to determine the

winner the result was still close but it

looked decisive Yanukovych got almost

900 000 more votes the geographic

distribution of the votes showed a clear

East-West division with voters in

Western Ukraine favoring Yushenko and

those in eastern Ukraine favoring

Yanukovych from the first round to the

second round big increases in turnout

were recorded in regions that supported

Yanukovych in his home District the

turnout went up by more than 40 percent

some districts had the old Soviet

classic of more than 100 turnout

Victor Plushenko was even Poisoned With

a toxic substance called dioxin he

survived but was permanently disfigured

International observers immediately

sounded the alarm and ukrainians took to

the streets on November the 22nd 2004

presidential election results were

announced in Ukraine they were greeted

with accusations of vote rigging on a

massive scale the defeated opposition

leader Yoshenko called for a national

strike and the People's Army occupied

kef's main Square it was dubbed the

orange Revolution but it was the turning

point in a bruising election Marathon

Ukraine was electrified by acts of Civil

Disobedience sit-ins and general strikes

the protests worked Ukraine's Supreme

Court annulled the results of the runoff

and ordered another vote for December

26th the whole world was watching so

Yanukovych and Putin couldn't pull the

same tricks the final results showed a

clear victory for Yoshenko who received

about 52 percent of the vote compared to

Yanukovych 45 on January 23 2005

Victor Ushenko was inaugurated president

of Ukraine the orange Revolution is an

important chapter in the political

evolution of Vladimir Putin after years

of cementing his rule at home this was

the first time he interfered in the

politics of a neighboring country with

the goal of installing a pro-kremlin

regime and he failed but his failure

would only deepen his resolve to expand

Russia's sphere of influence couldn't

understood that in order to turn failure

into success he needed to silence his

enemies do you remember this man what

about when he looked like this that's

Alexander lid Vignenko three days before

he died of polonium poisoning until 1998

he was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB

exactly the same rank as Vladimir Putin

but after giving a press conference

about an assassination plot he was fired

and then jailed for nine months when he

was released litvinenko fled Russia and

eventually settled in England there with

the help of another Exile the oligarch

Boris berezovsky he waged a years-long

media campaign against the Putin regime

they asked lots of uncomfortable

questions including about those

apartment bombings Livignko was becoming

an annoyance so deep in the heart of the

Kremlin the decision was made to

eliminate him to Russian kgb officers

were dispatched their destination London

they met with Littman Yenko at the

Millennium Hotel on November 1st 2006.

that night he fell ill two days later he

was admitted to the hospital under a

fake name as his condition worsened he

told his doctors who he really was and

that he'd been poisoned testing of

lippanyenko's blood and urine detected

small gamma-ray spikes a scientist who'd

worked on Britain's early atomic bomb

program overheard a conversation and

recognized the gamma ray Spike as the

signature of polonium 210 but detecting

polonium was very different to treating

it U.S and UK government officials had

never heard a polonium being used as

poison before and no one could save

Alexander Lippanyenko it took an

agonizing 23 days for him to die during

that time he wrote a statement blaming

Putin for what had happened

after his death investigators discovered

that the Assassins had put a lethal dose

of the polonium in a teapot at the

Millennium Hotel the assassination of

libyanco shook the world out of their

complacency regarding Putin as long as

he supported the war on terror and kind

of looked like a Democrat if you didn't

look too closely Western leaders could

convince themselves he was on their team

but now they could see the truth if

Putin could have one of his enemies

killed like that in a western Capital he

was capable of anything with the

assassination of Alexander Livignko

Vladimir Putin showed everyone in the

west who he really was and the thing is

he was still a popular leader in Russia

lots of Russians still remembered the

Cold War and the shock therapy

administered by Western economists

throughout the 1990s to them Putin was

restoring Russia to its rightful place

as a world power in its own right and a

counterweight to the west in the United

States he was also growing the economy

the U.S invasion of Iraq was one of the

factors that led to a massive increase

in the price of oil and gas which the

Russian economy depended on between 2003

and mid-2008 the price of crude oil Rose

from thirty dollars per barrel to almost

150 dollars per barrel that translated

to Rapid economic growth Russia's GDP

grew by an average of seven percent per

year real disposable incomes doubled

Putin was helping Russians become

wealthier while also asserting their

interests abroad in early 2007 he

attended the Munich security conference

and gave a speech which would become a

major turning point in his rhetoric

toward the west in language that was

increasingly candid for such a setting

Putin accused the United States in the

west of arrogance hypocrisy and

violating democracy this is a world of

one Master One Sovereign they constantly

teach Russia thus democracy but those

who teach us for some reason do not

really want to learn this speech is

absolutely key to to understanding

Putin's worldview fifteen years before

he invaded Ukraine and five years before

Xi Jinping became the leader of China

Putin was telling the world that Russia

wanted a multi-polar world order in

other words he wanted a system that

represented capitalism democracy and

other Western values to become less

powerful the speech was music to the

ears of nationalists in Russia and

contributed to his popularity at home

there was just one hitch according to

Russia's Constitution he couldn't

actually serve a third term as president

so he hatched a scheme with his loyal

prime minister Dmitry Medvedev Medvedev

would become president and Putin would

serve as prime minister it was blatant

subversion of democracy everyone could

see it was a way for Putin to maintain

his grip on Power and install someone

who would keep the seat warm for him

more than 71 percent of Russians voted

for Medvedev to become the figurehead

president despite no longer being

President Putin's grip on power was

stronger than ever and with things

secure at home he was ready to focus on

undermining these established world

order the leaders of NATO begin a

two-day Summit today that looks set to

highlight the pressures straining the

fabric of the alliance should NATO agree

to give membership action plans to

Georgia and Ukraine Russia was extremely

nervous about the prospect of countries

on its borders joining NATO which meant

that when NATO released a communique

which said that Ukraine and Georgia will

become members of NATO it immediately

set off alarm Bells those membership

action plans actually never ended up

happening but in Putin's eyes that

didn't matter from his perspective

allowing Ukraine and Georgia to join

NATO amounted to a direct threat to

Russia and he had to respond his first

Target was Georgia Georgia's pro-western

government was perpetually in conflict

with South Sacha and Abkezia two

Breakaway regions on its border with

Russia both regions which had lots of

native Russian speakers had declared

their independence most of the

International Community didn't recognize

those declarations but Russia did and

what's more Russia was providing

separatists in those regions with

weapons and other support the fighting

between Russia and Georgia over the

Georgian Breakaway region of South

Osetia President Bush has told Russian

leaders that military action against

Georgia is unacceptable tensions reached

a Breaking Point on August 1 2008

separatist forces started shelling

Georgian Villages Georgia responded by

sending in the military to take control

of separatist town the Russian

government claimed falsely that Georgia

was committing genocide against South of

Secha they used it as a pretext to

launch a full-scale Invasion including

into Undisputed Georgian territory

Russia's decisive military strength

meant the war was over in five days

Putin had sent a clear message to

Georgia and other countries in Eastern

Europe that were thinking about joining

NATO after failing to install his chosen

candidate in Ukraine the war against

Georgia showed that Putin was running a

different playbook in order to

destabilize a pro-western neighbor why

try and rig an election when you could

just arm separatists as an imperial

power Russia has always looked to

maintain spheres of influence on its

borders that's a big reason why as soon

as Putin saw there was a chance of

Georgia joining NATO he tried to depose

its president winning wars against small

countries was popular with Russians who

yearned for the good old days but there

were still lots of Russians who cared

about things like democracy and they

were about to make themselves heard tens

of thousands packed the streets of

Moscow and the biggest anti-government

demonstrations Russia has seen for 20

years they shouted Putin is a thief in

Russia without Putin protesters accused

prime minister Vladimir Putin în his

United Russia party of corruption and

rigging parliamentary elections last

weekend Russia's 2011 parliamentary

election had lots in common with the

Ukrainian presidential runoff that led

to the orange Revolution on top of

irregularities that Russians had grown

used to since Putin became leader like

debates between random candidates at 7am

cell phone footage showed blatant

violations of electoral laws videos were

quickly uploaded to social media India

which Putin didn't control at the time

people saw the evidence with their own

eyes but there was no way for the

election results to be overturned in

Ukraine the Supreme Court annulled the

result of the runoff but the same wasn't

going to happen in Russia Putin's party

United Russia maintained its

parliamentary majority more than a

hundred thousand brave people went out

onto the streets they weren't just

protesting the election results they

were protesting that their country had

been turned into a dictatorship

presidential elections were due in early

2012. everyone knew Putin would get his

old job back his preferred candidate

Viktor Yanukovych was even back as

president of Ukraine Russian Civil

Society may have been defiant but the

country's institutions and political

opposition had been totally neutralized

Putin could only see one threat to his

rule Putin built his own anxieties into

his 2012 presidential campaign he

compared the political situation in

Russia to Napoleon's attempted Invasion

200 years earlier and said that National

sovereignty was Paramount he got almost

two-thirds of the votes from a tired and

defeated electorate and just like that

he was president again

it sounds weird but Putin's most

important political victory of 2012

didn't happen in Moscow it happened

three and a half thousand miles away in

Beijing Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin

have a lot in common they're just six

months apart in age their fathers both

fought in World War II they met at an

economic cooperation Summit in 2013. the

day they met was actually Putin's

birthday Xi Jinping presented him with a

cake while the Russian president pulled

out a bottle of vodka as far as we can

tell they've actually become friends

poon was the first world leader that Xi

Jinping visited after becoming China's

president and they've had more than 40

meetings since then most importantly

their allies with a common geopolitical

goal creating a multi-polar world order

C came along at the perfect time for

Putin on its own Russia can't take on

NATO or the United States its military

isn't strong enough its economy isn't

big enough and its diplomacy isn't

effective enough

China might be different from as soon as

he gained power Xi Jinping has made it

clear that his ultimate foreign policy

aim is to displace the United States as

the world's most powerful country put in

wants to weaken the West while expanding

Russia's sphere of influence it was the

beginning of an important partnership

Vladimir Putin survived massive protests

at home and brushed off criticism from

the International Community his Rivals

were sidelined and his critics were dead

in jail or in Exile he was further

annoying the west by supporting the

Syrian president Bashar al-assad in the

Civil War that had engulfed the country

there were even Whispers that he had

secretly become one of the world's

richest men by embezzling money and

extorting the country's oligarchs he had

achieved absolute power at home and in

Xi Jinping he had a powerful new ally

but the mission he had been training for

decades had only really just started

because as Putin began his third term as

president in 2012 he was still missing

the biggest piece of the puzzle Ukraine

why is Ukraine so important for Putin

because it matters to Russia's past and

its future let me explain Ukraine has

been Central to Russian identity and

power for centuries Christianity was in

poor from Byzantium to the Slavic people

via Kiev and Christianity served as the

anchor for Kevin Roos the early state

from which Russians ukrainians and

belarusians draw their cultural lineage

today those close links have remained

most ukrainians can speak at least some

Russian and Eastern Ukraine was

historically home to a large ethnic

Russian minority Ukraine was also

strategically vital for Russian

interests as Europe's second largest

country it contributed massive amounts

of grain coal and steel to the Soviet

Union Ukrainian factories were a vital

part of the ussr's military-industrial

capacity Russian Czar spent their

Summers on the beautiful beaches of the

Crimean Peninsula which also hosted the

country's largest warm water Naval port

and through to the modern day Ukraine's

location on the Black Sea and on the

border with numerous Eastern European

States and future NATO members was vital

to Russian interests the countries have

been so closely intertwined throughout

history that most Russian nationalists

Putin included don't actually think

Ukraine is a separate country Putin even

wrote an entire essay about it in 2021

Putin believed that Russians and

ukrainians were single people United by

history and divided by a meddling West

the vast majority of ukrainians

disagreed but Putin has made a career

out of not caring what people think

losing Ukraine had undermined Russian

power losing it permanently to the

Westwood in Putin's eyes be a major

ongoing threat to Russian security the

air needed to be corrected a miracle

didn't happen and European union leaders

and Ukraine have as expected failed to

sign an historic free trade deal after a

last-minute U-turn from Kiev on November

21st 2013 a week before The Summit in

Lithuania Yanukovych announced he

wouldn't sign it who knows what exactly

made him change his mind but the U-turn

made millions of ukrainians realize that

so long as their government was taking

orders from Moscow they could never be

truly free to be free they needed a

revolution

[Music]

hundreds of thousands took to the

streets across Ukraine kiev

Independent Square was turned into a

massive protest camp with barricades

broadcasting facilities and stages for

lectures and speeches events escalated

further in early 2014 when Yanukovych

signed Draconian anti-protest laws but

that couldn't stop the protesters even

when Security Forces started firing

killing almost a hundred of them they

didn't stop they wanted Yanukovych out

they soon got their wish the Yankovich

fled and it didn't surprise anyone when

he resurfaced days later in Russia the

Ukrainian Parliament restored the

Constitution to its 2004 version an

interim government signed the EU deal a

former businessman became president the

events of February 2014 became known in

Ukraine as the revolution of dignity the

future of Ukraine suddenly looked bright

but Vladimir Putin wasn't about to

accept defeat soldiers began appearing

in the southern Ukrainian province of

Crimea and they came to be known as The

Little Green Men within a couple of

weeks the whole of Crimea was under the

control of these little green men for

weeks Putin denied these little green

men were Russian soldiers claiming

instead they were local militia who'd

seized Ukrainian weapons eventually he

couldn't deny the obvious they were

Russian soldiers although Putin didn't

admit it some of the soldiers weren't

fighting under the Russian flag some

were mercenaries under the command of

Evgeni pregosian a businessman known as

Putin's Chef because he ran a catering

business which staged Banquets for the

Kremlin and now those mercenaries

together with the Russian soldiers and

the rest of the little green men were

occupying the territory of a foreign

country Crimea had been one of the most

prized possessions of the Russian Empire

and Soviet Union but in 1954 the leader

of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev

transferred control of Crimea to Ukraine

partly to commemorate the 300th

anniversary of Ukraine's Union with

Russia Ukraine was part of the Soviet

Union so as long as the Soviet Union

existed it didn't really matter too much

but of course the Soviet Union collapsed

and suddenly Crimea belonged to a

different country that was terrible news

for nationalists like Putin to them

Crimea was part of Russia but during the

1990s and 2000s Not only was Russia too

weak to try and take it back it didn't

have the right opportunity Ukraine's

revolution of dignity changed that it

created a power vacuum which allowed

Putin to run a version of the same

Playbook that he'd employed in Georgia

six years before on March 6th the

Crimean Parliament which remembered the

little green men had actually occupied

voted to hold a snap referendum on

Independence and the prospect of joining

Russia 97 percent of crimeans said they

were in favor of joining Russia it's

absolutely true that there was genuine

support for Russia especially in the

Southern and Eastern regions of Ukraine

where cultural ties to Russia were

stronger but I'll leave it up to you to

decide if the vote was totally fair or

not it didn't matter Putin had his

pretext soldiers this time bearing the

official Insignia of the Russian

military moved in they quickly

surrounded all of Ukraine's military

bases in the region and on the 18th

Putin announced the formal incorporation

of Crimea into Russia it's not like

anyone was under any illusion about

Vladimir Putin but even by those

standards this was an escalation the

annexation of Crimea was the first time

a European country seized territory for

another European country in the 21st

century it was a shock to everyone who

had kind of assumed that war in Europe

was the thing of the past from there

things moved really fast armed

pro-russian separatists in the provinces

of Donetsk and Luhansk an area

collectively known as the donbass

declared independence from Ukraine and

the fighting began Russia covertly

provided the separatists with weapons

while massaging thousands of soldiers on

Ukraine's eastern border by the end of

April Ukraine had lost control of

Donetsk and Luhansk to the separatists

International authorities warned

commercial airlines to not fly over

eastern Ukraine but tragically the

warning came too late the terrible first

moment after flight mh-17 was shot down

local villagers struggled to prevent the

fires spreading to their crops the

shooting down of Malaysian Airlines

flight 17 made everyone in the world

realize that they had to pay attention

to what was happening in the donbass

until then lots of people could convince

themselves that it didn't really matter

it was just fighting in a far away place

they hadn't heard of but this was a

passenger plane with casualties from 10

different countries and when

investigators learned that the plane had

been shot down by pro-russian

separatists using a service-to-air

missile which they had imported from

Russia the International Community was

outraged it was a very tense moment

world wars have been started over less

thankfully the moment passed without

further escalation all sides Ukraine

Russia and the two so-called people's

republicans agreed on a road map to ending

the war in late 2019. it quickly failed

mostly because of repeated breaches by

the Russian side but that's exactly how

Putin wanted it he didn't want to end

the fighting deep in the heart of the

Kremlin isolated from his advisors

because of his paranoia about covid-19

Vladimir Putin decided that he would

finally undo the catastrophe brought

about by the collapse of the Soviet

Union he would invade Ukraine and

reattach it to Russia by force most

people at least in the west never

believed he'd do it they thought it was

an irrational move that would only serve

to galvanize the west and push Ukraine

toward NATO but he did it anyway on

February 24th 2022 after weeks of

preparation Russian troops crossed

Ukraine's northern border including from

neighboring Belarus from Donetsk in

Luhansk in the East and from the South

Via Crimea see

footage captured some of the first

moments of the invasion it wasn't the

beginning of a war it was the escalation

of one which began when those little

green men started showing up in Crimea

and of course according to Putin it was

not a war at all it was a special

military operation no one knows how the

war in Ukraine will end but in many ways

it's already been a failure Putin

expected Ukraine and the West to

collapse Ukraine itself has been

incredibly resilient and almost a

quarter of a century after the cursed

disaster Russia has shown surprising

weakness in terms of tactics and

hardware and rather than quickly seizing

Ukraine Putin has massively increased

the importance of NATO and brought the

West into the closest security

partnership it's had for decades Finland

has joined NATO it looks like Sweden

will join soon too and there are serious

discussions underway about Ukraine

joining as well Putin's Invasion has

drawn clear battle lines on one side

there's the West a grouping which now

includes Ukraine and on the other side

there's Russia China and their allies

less than three weeks before Russia

invaded Ukraine Putin visited Beijing

there he signed what China called a No

Limits partnership since the invasion

began Chinese officials have been

careful to not refer to it as a war

while also repeating Putin's narrative

that NATO expansion was to blame the two

countries have deepened their

cooperation in several areas China is

now Russia's number one trading partner

and has propped up Russia's economy by

buying their oil natural gas and

advanced weapon systems

conduct joint military exercises on a

near-monthly basis and their generals

regularly discuss how to overcome

strategic threats such as U.S nuclear

modernization and missile defense in

March 2023 Xi Jinping visited Russia to

see Vladimir Putin for the first time

since the Invasion the two men pledged

to shape a new world order and drive

changes not seen in a century it sounds

like their friendship is going pretty

well in addition to changing Global

geopolitics Putin's Invasion has also

changed Russia as the war started to

drag on and the easy victory that Putin

expected didn't materialize key Russian

military leaders began grumbling one of

the loudest critics was someone I

mentioned earlier Putin's Chef evgeny

pagosian pagosian runs the Wagner group

a shadowy mercenary organization that

first appeared in Crimea in 2014 but

since then has exerted Russian influence

by proxy in places like Syria Libya and

Mali and since late 2022 he's been

saying what everyone in the Russian army

is scared to say the war is going badly

in October he criticized the decision to

withdraw from a key City in eastern

Ukraine in February of 2023 he recorded

messages on telegram accusing Russia's

most senior General and the country's

defense minister of withholding

ammunition and supplies from his

soldiers so of treason basically and in

early June he said the Wagner group

wouldn't sign a contract with the

defense Ministry but I think it's fair

to say that no one expected the

escalation that happened on June 23rd in

a half hour video pagosian directly

accused the Russian military of

attacking Wagner's fighters in Ukraine

while also directly contradicting all of

Putin's justifications for the war

saying the war wasn't needed to return

Russian citizens to our bosom nor to

demilitarize or denotify Ukraine the

war was needed so that a bunch of

animals could simply exult in glory but

this time pagosian wouldn't just settle

for talking he directed his fighters to

go on the offensive within hours they

had captured major military buildings in

rustavondan Russia's ninth largest city

and a major staging point for The

Invasion and an armored column was

moving in the direction of Moscow

unconfirmed reports even suggested that

the Wagner group shot down several

Russian military aircraft Putin quickly

mobilized troops to defend the capital

and gave a speech calling the Rebellion

a knife in the back plane tracking data

suggested that the presidential plane

flew North out of Moscow before

switching off its transponder and going

dark and then just as quickly as the

Rebellion or Mutiny or coup whatever you

want to call it had started it was over

the president of Belarus Alexander

lukashenko said he struck a deal to end

the conflict and provide pagosian with

Safe Harbor in Belarus as one tweet put

it the Wagner Rebellion is like if a

bunch of disgruntled Blackwater vets

took San Diego except it's even worse

because then the Blackwater vets made it

almost all the way to Washington DC

before Joe Biden cut a deal with Justin

Trudeau to take in their leader while

also dropping all criminal charges was

it an attempted coup was it just a feud

between different factions did pagosian

get some kind of deal in exchange for

turning his soldiers around how much

will this help Ukraine as I'm recording

this there aren't really any clear

answers but it's safe to say one thing

it's really bad news for Vladimir Putin

his former Ally publicly called the war

corrupt revealed massive problems inside

of Russia's military and then seized one

of the country's most important cities

almost without a fight and all Putin

could do was give a speech and then

seemingly let him Escape without

punishment almost 25 years after he

climbed to the top of Russian politics

maybe the world is now seeing another

side of Vladimir Putin the leader who's

losing control at the start of this

video I asked some questions like who is

Vladimir Putin what does he want and why

did he invade Ukraine Vladimir Putin is

a spy politician Nationalist and a

gangster Who Wants to Be an emperor he's

also one of the most important people in

the world and every day since he started

as a junior KGB officer he's been on a

mission to restore Russia's standing as

a world power and in the process to

weaken the West

so far he's mostly failed Russia is

still in Decline and he can't do much

about it his invasion of Ukraine has

brought the West as close as it's been

for decades and the Wagner group's

Rebellion has shown that his grip on

power may be more tenuous than it's ever

been but he's found an incredibly

important Ally Xi Jinping their

friendship is a big problem for everyone

who cares about democracy human rights

and a stable International system and it

might end up being the most important

part of Vladimir Putin's Legacy and to

better understand this Dynamic you need

to watch this video about Xi Jinping