Putin: A Russian Spy Story

I am very familiar with the modern history of Russia, and this miniseries didn't really bring anything new to the table for me. But it summarized pretty nicely the Putin's presidency, and I was in fact positively surprised.

However, certain major events were totally omitted from the series, such as the war in Georgia in 2008, the Sochi doping scandal, the Moscow theatre hostage crisis of 2002, the Beslan school siege of 2004, and the earlier constitution change in 2012 that prolonged the presidential terms from 4 years to 6 years.

And more effort could've been put on investigating the financial arrangements between Putin and his oligarch friends, and how they have been investing their wealth in the UK and elsewhere in the west...

Anyway, any movie or series that is critical of Putin earns a pretty high score by default. The world needs much more productions like this.

A clinical analysis of how Putin achieved and has kept power.

Putin came from the slums of Leningrad where he from the start made himself prominent as a thug among street gang fighters. Gradually he advanced into politics, where the KGB took care of him and educated him into a a cool ruthless opportunist using any means to further his career. As such he got into the favours of the decaying alcoholised Boris Yeltsin, who made him his successor for the presidency of Russia. This position he has maintained by consistently persecuting opponents and critics, even abroad, like the notorious Litvinenko case in Britain, a British citizen murdered by Putin's agents. This was followed by other political murders of truth-sayers, the most prominent being the journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow, assassinated at home on Putin's birthday, like a demonstration of Putin's power. He has also been accused of bringing Donald Trump to power in America, but like all allegations of his crimes, Putin has denied them all, being safe in his absolute position and having made sure to obliterate any possible evidence. What we are dealing with here is a world mafia syndicate of the richest people in the world in the highest positions of power, like Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, the Iran jihad autocracy, the Chinese communist party, Kim Jong Un and others. This documentary gives a comprehensive view and insight into Putin's career, pointing out the fact that he is nothing but a street gangster thug that as a professional opportunist has managed to replace a former regime of ruthless gangsters with another more subtle gangster syndicate with himself as supreme mafia boss.

Putin: A Russian Spy Story is a decent documentary on Vladimir Putin's political life from about 1995 to 2018.

Two hours of watching this three episode documentary gives the viewer a chance to follow Putin's reasonably well documented rise to power and what he does with that power. A clear UK focus shines through as events affecting UK get more attention than objectively deserved. This also leads to a few Russian opposition figures getting more coverage than natural in a documentary on Putin.

There are many interviews with friends and foes of Putin. A fair amount of old pictures and interviews of Putin himself have been dug up. There is also a tiny bit of analysis from independent Russia experts

The documentary is still not dated as of 2021. Despite the odd flaw it gives the insight into Vladimir Putin and his political ideas and abilities needed for the common person somewhat into poliitcs. Putin: A Russian Spy Story is an OK way to spend two hours if you are interested in modern Russia and don't know the details about Vladimir Putin.

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