When Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed a little-known spy chief as his Prime Minister and successor in 1999, the rouble crashed. Nobody had heard of this former KGB agent and few believed he would make any mark.
Vladimir Putin would soon show Russians, and the world, what he was made of.
Within weeks of his appointment as Prime Minister, apartment blocks in Moscow and other cities began exploding, killing and wounding hundreds of civilians. The Kremlin blamed Chechen separatists and soon launched a brutal war against the tiny state.
The war resulted in huge civilian casualties but it raised Putin’s profile at home. Months later, he was elected president.
Correspondent Eric Campbell was in Russia when Putin began his rise to power and has followed his career ever since.
Campbell tracks Putin’s journey to the top, from his origins in an impoverished tenement in St Petersburg to his ruthless prosecution of the war against Chechnya to his relentless attacks on any political opposition at home.
Campbell closely chronicled Putin for over two decades as the leader set about muzzling the media, rigging elections and targeting his political opponents, at home and abroad.
Now as the President-for-Life invades neighbouring Ukraine and threatens the world with the nuclear option, Campbell asks, how far will he go?
This is an in-depth profile of a man who’s smashed the world order and dared the West to risk World War Three to stop him.
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