WEBVTT

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[music]

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[music]

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[sil.]

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Since this election as president of Russia
in year 2000, Vladimir Putin has become

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the most popular politician in the country and he
is also the biggest celebrity in Russia\'s history.

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What lay behind the dazzling rise to power
of this former KGB lieutenant colonel

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who was totally unknown one year before the
election? How did Vladimir Putin manage

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to capture the Russian presidency in March,
2000? Was it down to popularic claim,

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or Kremlin Trickery, or simply a
strange interpretation of democracy?

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This story begins with an enormous case of
corruption, literally at the centre of Russian power

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in the very fabric of
the Kremlin buildings.

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In the mid 1990\'s, Boris
Yeltsin decides to change

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the image of the Kremlin and erase
the symbols of soviet color.

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Pavel Borodin, Yeltsin\'s property chief was given
the job of restoring the pre-soviet Kremlin.

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He signed contract with western businesses for billions of
dollars. The money was transferred through Swiss banks.

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In 1998, the Swiss authorities noted a
regularities in certain transactions.

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The Swiss federal prosecutor, Carla del
Ponte, suggested to a Russian counterpart

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that he open a judicial enquiry.

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Despite these fears,

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prosecutor Skuratov did open an enquiry. He soon
suspected a huge money laundering operation

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hidden behind the Kremlin\'s golden doors. Pavel Borodin
and his team had profited from their close links

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with the presidency to inflate the cost of
the work this allowed them to sign contracts

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with several times the real price
and to pocket the difference.

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[music]

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One of Borodin\'s privileged partner in this
scheme was a Swiss company called Mabetex,

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with whom he sign a contract for $350
million, for interior decoration.

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[music]

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The scale of the affair was enormous. In an earlier period
of Yeltsin\'s reign, the scandal would have in quietly swept

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under the carpet. This time
things would be different.

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In the month of August, 1998, in the middle of the summer
holidays, the Russian government suddenly announced

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it could no longer pay its international
debts and would default. The country plunged

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into a financial crisis without president. Many of
the big banks went bankrupt and the Ruble collapsed.

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Angry Russians accused

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Yeltsin and his reforms of causing this catastrophe and they
demanded to see their currents []. People said the president

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after several heart attacks and quintuple
bypass operation was too ill to rule.

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The population was near to panicking.

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And at the peak of the crisis, Bill Clinton was scheduled
to visit. A few days before he was due to leave Washington,

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the CIA sent news to the white house,
they had a report that Yeltsin was dead.

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[music]

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I first heard about this from Secretary
Albright, in her office say,

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she said to me, \"I, I, I guess you heard
the latest report from our friends

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at the… at the agency.\"
And I said, \'Latest?\'

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\"Yes, Yeltsin is dead, it
seems.\" And the question was

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is there anybody to go and meet?
This was needless to say,

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for President Clinton and welcome prospect
to arrive and have a vegetable there.

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Uh… And there was serious consideration
given by the administration

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to cancelling the trip because with
all of his own political problems,

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President Clinton did not want to look as
though he was tethering himself to a corpse.

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[sil.]

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The doctors somehow got Yeltsin back on his feet
for Clinton. The Russian president seems to be

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back in control of Kremlin. But in reality,

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decisions now depended more and more on a small
circle of advisors that the Kremlin press

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pooled up the family.

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The family assorted unofficial politburo

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assembled around Yeltsin
included his daughter Tatyana,

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her future husband Yumasheva, and
the businessman Boris Berezovsky,

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and Roman Abramovich.

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[music]

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In the autumn of 1998, this
tight circle of the Kremlin

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was searching for someone for Yeltsin to appoint
as prime minister to end the financial crisis.

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It wasn\'t just the question of
finding a new head of government

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but of finding Yeltsin\'s successor. For according
to the Russian constitution, it is prime minister

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who replaces president in case of ill health.
And in any case, they were less than two years

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to the next presidential elections. The prime minister\'s
post was the perfect launch pad for the presidency.

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[sil.]

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All the candidates proposed by the family were rejected
by the parliament. Yeltsin, finally had to accept

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Yevgeny Primakov as the prime minister. This former foreign
minister and ex-chief of the intelligence services,

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was close to the communist
majority in parliament.

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The new prime minister tried
to reign in the family

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and demanded a government report of true state
of corruption and economic crime in the country.

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Within weeks, the report was on his desk.

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Although public opinion

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largely approved Primakov\'s proposals, for
Russian businessman, like, Boris Berezovsky,

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it was a declaration of war.

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War was declared. The first battle would
be fought over the Mabetex affair.

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The Russian prosecutor general sent to commission
to Switzerland to investigate further.

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At Lugano, the investigators discovered
a personal bank account of $6 million

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in the name of Pavel Borodin, the
property chief of the Kremlin.

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During a search of the offices of Mabetex, they found
credit card papers written out for Yeltsin\'s daughters

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and the bank card in the name of president.
Carla del Ponte called prosecutor Skuratov.

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On February the 1st, 1999,

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prosecutor Skuratov was called into the Kremlin
to see the president\'s chief of staff.

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It was just 10 days from the search of
Mabetex. The Kremlin was hitting back hard,

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hard and below the belt.

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[sil.]

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Blackmail is a tried and tested Kremlin tool. The
family was believed to hold incriminating cassettes

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on many senior public officials. But
Skuratov did not give in to the blackmail

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and continued his enquiry
with his Swiss colleagues.

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On the 23rd of March, Carla del Ponte, herself came
to Moscow. She had some new documents on the affair.

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Carla del Ponte successfully avoided the
ministry of the interior and refused to sleep

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in the Prosecutor\'s residence.

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The following day, Swiss
prosecutor left Russia

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with no further incidents. Meanwhile, the
cassettes were shown to the members of parliament

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to justify Yeltsin\'s demands for the
dismissal of the prosecutor general.

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But the deputies were not convinced by the
recording and refused to let Skuratov go.

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The next move for the Kremlin, leak the
video. Extracts from the recording

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were broadcast on TV, but nobody was sure
it was really Skuratov on the cassette.

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So the prosecutor notched up the pressure,
he decided to question Yeltsin\'s daughters

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and to arrest Berezovsky. It was then
the Kremlin played their trump card.

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[sil.]

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Putin had proved to the family that they could
count on him. After his public intervention,

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a judicial enquiry was opened
on Prosecutor Skuratov.

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He was sacked and forced to
abandon the Mabetex affair.

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The family had won the first round
but the game was far from over.

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The presidential elections were just 14 months away,
Primakov was still Prime Minister and still pursuing

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his anti-corruption campaign. He was
still riding high in the opinion polls.

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The majority of Russians wanted him to be the next
president. So the Kremlin prepared his downfall.

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The first public sign of the maneuver
was a game of musical chairs.

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[music]

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[music]

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[music]

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[music]

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[music]

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Primakov was sacked,
Stepashin took his place.

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But Primakov did not disappear from the political scene.
With the old powerful man of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov,

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he created a new party, \"The Fatherland\".

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Primakov publicly denounced the
corruption of Yeltsin\'s entourage

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and asked to see the Kremlin\'s accounts.
The new party flew up the opinion polls.

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In the Kremlin, the family was in panic.

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They had to find a successor to Yeltsin, but they
were short of candidates. Reformers or apparatchiks,

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no one seemed sufficiently
docile and loyal. It was then

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the family remembered Vladimir Putin. He proved
with the Mabetex affair that he could be relied on.

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Why Putin? After the collapse
of the soviet union,

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this former KGB colonel started
a new career as an apparatchik

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in the shadow of the powerful man
of St.Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak.

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Sobchak took him on his
deputy, then in 1996,

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put him in charge of his re-election campaign for
mayor. This was Putin\'s sole electoral experience.

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He failed, Sobchak lost the
election, Putin lost his job.

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He could have gone in to business

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but he chose a different route, he
went to Moscow and was hired by

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none other than Kremlin
property boss, Pavel Borodin.

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Putin became Borodin\'s deputy.

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In less than two years, he was made
head of the FSB, successor to the KGB.

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But how could the head of secret service

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become heir to Yeltsin. The
family choose him for his loyalty

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but also, like, Primakov to electorate,
he represented law and order.

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And if Putin manage to win over the family,
it was because he had another talent,

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a talent which is essential for anyone who wants
to survive and thrive in Kremlin intrigues.

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He knows how to please.

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Elena Tregubova, one of the most influential
Kremlin journalists had personal experience

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of Putin\'s talents. One day she received
a lunch invitation from the head of FSB

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who had decided on a charm offensive.

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The ex-spy used his talents to seduce
anyone who was of any importance.

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By the time he had everyone who mattered on
his side, he was the preferred candidate

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of Yeltsin\'s daughter and her husband.
It was Boris Berezovsky,

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sometimes known as the godfather
of the Kremlin, who in June, 1999,

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was given the task of making
a secret offer to Putin.

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Later, Putin described the scene
to his favorite journalist.

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The family kept their choice secret,

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outwardly life continued, that summer of 1999,
no one was talking about the elections.

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All seemed very calm, but
appearances were deceptive.

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In Switzerland, the Mabetex
investigation resumed.

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In New York, a new enquiry was opened threatening those
closest to Yeltsin. It concerned many laundering of IMF funds

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on a massive scale.

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The US treasuries were investigating, the family
had to act fast. They decided to launch Putin.

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[sil.]

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[non-English narration]

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The events in Chechnya were well timed. The
morning of 5th of August, several Chechen groups

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commanded by Shamil Basayev crossed the
frontier and penetrated without resistance

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into the Russian province of Dagestan with the goal
of establishing a Muslim state in the Caucasus.

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At the time, the Kremlin have
seem to be caught by surprise.

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According to some sources those closest to the Kremlin
encourage Shamil Basayev to bring forward the day of his raid.

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The Russian army responded
with a gigantic operation.

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Moscow was plunged into
a new political crisis.

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Yeltsin took his chance to
change the Prime Minister.

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[sil.]

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[music]

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When we heard the news, we thought
Russian politics has now become

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ultimately and incorrigibly
unpredictable that

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such a person as Putin, somebody who was,
you know, at sort of a low level bureaucrat

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in the estimate of most people who dealt
with him could be, you know, positioned

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to become president if anything
happened to Yeltsin seemed absurd.

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Putin was completely unknown to the whiter
public, and there were only 10 months left

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before presidential elections, so he had to
quote public opinion, starting with those

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he understood best, the military. He
visited the units fighting in Dagestan

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under the command of General Shamanov,
one of Russia\'s best military leaders.

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But the pictures of the new Prime Minister

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with the military were not
enough to make him popular.

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10 months before the presidential
elections, Putin stood at 3% in the polls,

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Primakov was close to 20.

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How could the situation be reversed?
There was only one way, Television.

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Berezovsky brought back Sergei Dorenko,

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a top TV journalist from Channel One.

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Dorenko had been taken off the air waves some months
early by Primakov, who didn\'t appreciate his frankness.

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[non-English narration]

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[music]

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Dorenko was given a weekly Sunday
evening primetime broadcast

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on Channel One, which
belonged to Berezovsky.

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It was the most watched program in Russia.
And every fortnight,

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Putin was Dorenko\'s guest on the program.

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[music]

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[music]

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300 people were killed in the explosion.
Russia has never known attacks on this scale.

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Even today, no one knows
who was responsible.

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At the time, the authorities
immediately accused

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Chechen terrorists of the attack
provoking a wave of xenophobia.

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But there is another popular theory
implicating the FSB, Putin\'s former ministry.

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It was a turning point, three
days after the first explosion,

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Putin met President Clinton and presented
him with a detailed battle plan.

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He sat down with, with President Clinton

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and drew a map of Chechnya
and told him, you know,

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what Russian operations are gonna be
like, we couldn\'t make much sense of it.

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But it was clear from what,
what he communicated there,

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that he was seeing this issue
as his most important,

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uh… most important one in his portfolio.
When he spoke to the press,

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Putin reverted to old style
Soviet era KGB language.

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After he returned to Russia, Putin,
no longer spoke of terrorist groups

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but began to blame the Chechen nation.

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Putin justified his order to the army to
bomb Chechnya in an unorthodox manner.

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On the 1st of October, 1999,

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the Russian army invaded Chechnya.
Public opinion supported the new war.

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Vladimir Putin rose to 15% in the
opinion polls, but it wasn\'t enough.

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So away from the cameras,
the Kremlin created

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a committee of support for the Prime Minister,
it was basically a campaign stuff for Putin.

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He was given the full support of the state
machine, money and the best spin doctors,

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like, Ksenia Ponomareva., the
ex-chief of Channel One.

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The first stage was

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the parliamentary elections in December.
If Primakov\'s party won a majority,

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no one would have been able to fight \'em in the presidential
elections. As for Putin, he didn\'t even have a party

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to support him. The family met in secret.

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Berezovsky managed to convince them,
and two months before the election

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he created a new party where there
is leaders, a sportsman, a minister,

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and a magistrate. The party had neither
an ideology nor a political program.

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At the same time, Sergei Dorenko was waging

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a no holds barred TV war against Primakov.
So did details came out about

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the ex-Prime Minister\'s state of health, and his ally,
the mayor of Moscow, was accused of corruption.

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Humiliated by these attacks, Primakov proposed a
seize fire, he offered to support the government

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if Putin put an end to the media defensive.
Dorenko immediately responded on air.

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The elections were now just weeks away.

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In Chechnya, Russian army had a ride to the gates of
capital, Grozny. The army had met their objectives,

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the military proposed a
pause in the fighting.

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The conflict in Chechnya was an
integral part of the election campaign,

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the opinion of the generals
no longer counted.

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The political decision was very simple,

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the war must go on.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
On December, the 19th,

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
the voters choose Putin\'s
party with 23% of the votes,

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
this party formed without any political program two
months before the elections buried Primakov\'s party,

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:55.000
which only managed 13%.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
His mission accomplished,

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
Berezovsky decided to take a vacation,
last hurdle in a presidential elections

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
was still six months away. It was December
31st, the beginning of the holidays in Russia.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:25.000
The whole country was preparing
to celebrate the New Year.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
Yeltsin resigned and as decreed

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
in the constitution, the Prime Minister became
interning President. The presidential elections

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:45.000
were moved forward to March.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
Yeltsin\'s departure was perfectly timed.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
Putin was riding high in the polls and
after see him through the election,

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:15.000
But who would have the courage to suggest to Yeltsin, he should
go? Once again it was the family that had taken the decision.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
[music]

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
Yeltsin seem to have resigned with grace.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
Putin promised not to make changes in the Kremlin
High Rockey and to carry on with Yeltsin\'s reforms.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
The first decree signed by the new President
guaranteed the judicial immunity of

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:10.000
Boris Yeltsin and his family.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:23.000
That same evening,

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
and to the general\'s surprise, Putin made a
quick visit to Chechnya accompanied by his wife

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
and the television cameras.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:48.000
Putin understood the
importance of the media.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
Putin\'s press service
reintroduced propaganda,

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
every picture of the President is now staged
by the Kremlin. A policy unimaginable

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
since the end of the Soviet Union
and that was only the start.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
In parliament, Putin\'s party is allied to
the communist\'s, Yeltsin\'s sworn enemies.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
Later, Putin insisted that parliament
reinstate the anthem of the Soviet Union,

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:38.000
written by Stalin.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
The new president kept
Yeltsin\'s chief of staff

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
but named friends in the secret service to the other
key posts. Putin started to show his true nature

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.000
and even those who put him
in power, began to worry.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
[sil.]

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
It was too late to stop the machine.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
On 26th of March, 2000, Vladimir Putin was
elected president of the Russian federation

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:40.000
with 52% of the vote.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
[sil.]

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
On the 7th of May, Putin was enthroned
president of Russia in the Kremlin palace,

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:13.000
restored by Pavel Borodin and Mabetex.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:20.000
[sil.]

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
Despite his promises, Putin
abandoned the policies

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
set by his predecessors, but he respected
certain agreements of the past.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
The investigation into Mabetex was suspended
due to Moscow\'s lack of cooperation.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
Yeltsin and his family had never been touched,
but they lost their influence in the Kremlin

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
and never talked to journalists. They all
thought Putin would be patting in their hands

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
but he shook off both his
masters and his allies.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
Boris Berezovsky, Eminoz Greece, and a personal
friend of Putin had to flee the country

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:15.000
under the threat of arrest. He was
granted political asylum in the UK.

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
As for the elections, Putin
has overtaken his masters.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
He was reelected in 2004 in the first round

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
with 72% of the votes. But the constitution
limits him to the two four year terms

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
which expire in 2008. Will
Putin modify the constitution?

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
Or will he create his own successor?

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:53.000
[music]