BBC - Putin Russia and the West S01E03

The third episode tells how, in August 2008, Russia went to war with America's ally, Georgia. Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev and Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili reveal why each decided it was necessary to make war on the other. Former American secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and former 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.

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 United Russia party the winner in parliamentary elections that have widely been seen as fraudulent, causing mass protests in Moscow and elsewhere with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets.

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 Moscow 100,000 protesters have taken to the streets in the largest demonstrations since Putin took office. 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?

The final episode of the series 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...

The second episode includes an extraordinary interview with former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, who 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...

Niall Ferguson explores how Western civilization a clear minority of mankind secured a lion's share of the world's resources, and examines whether the West is about to be overtaken by the rest.

Project "PUTIN" | Dancing on the Frying-Pan. Putin, Medvedev and All the King's Man. (RUS) | 53.44MB | HF-DF

2010 | By Vladimir Bushin | Politology

This book serves as a comprehensive guide to the history and culture of Russia. It covers the history of Russia, the world's largest nation - from its early beginnings in the ninth century when Rurik, a Varangian king, established the first Russian state near Kiev, to the current presidency of Vladimir Putin - is extensive and fascinating.Detailing the social, economic, and political changes and crises that the people of Russia have had to endure, "A Brief History of Russia" provides a comprehensive and accessible *** of this vast country's history. A chronology, bibliography, suggested reading, and other helpful features enrich this invaluable book.Its coverage includes: The conquest and rule of Russia by the Mongol Golden Horde; The reign of terror by Ivan the Terrible; The start of modernization under Peter the Great; The rise to the center of the European power under Catherine the Great; The Russian Revolution and the emergence of the superpower Soviet Union; The disintegration of the Soviet Union; and, The political, social, and economic problems that the country has faced since then....

Khodorkovsky, the richest Russian, challenges President Putin. A fight of the titans begins. Putin warns him. But Khodorkovsky comes back to Russia knowing that he will be imprisoned, once he returns. When I heard about it, I asked myself: why didn't he stay in exile with a couple of billions? Why did he do that? A personal journey to Khodorkovsky.

This well-funded work analyzes the long struggle of Iran and the West to come together ever since the revolution. The documentary shows interviews with a wide range of world leaders who reveal the inner dealings of all governing adminstrations from the past thirty years, both from within Iran’s own adminstration and from the Western counterparts. These include Vladimir Putin, Jimmy Carter, Mohammad Khatami, Bill Clinton, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Colin Powell, Ali Larijani, Farah Pahlavi, Madeline Albright, and Javier Solana among many others.

This volume offers a number of forensic indicators of election fraud applied to official election returns, and tests and illustrates their application in Russia and Ukraine. Included are the methodology's econometric details and theoretical assumptions. The applications to Russia include the analysis of all federal elections between 1996 and 2007 and, for Ukraine, between 2004 and 2007. Generally, we find that fraud has metastasized within the Russian polity during Putin's administration with upwards of 10 million or more suspect votes in both the 2004 and 2007 balloting, whereas in Ukraine, fraud has diminished considerably since the second round of its 2004 presidential election where between 1.5 to 3 million votes were falsified. The volume concludes with a consideration of data from the United States to illustrate the dangers of the application of our methods without due consideration of an election's substantive context and the characteristics of the data at hand. ...

Comrade J, written by the bestselling author of Family of Spies and The Hot House, is the the remarkable true story of the man who ran Russia's post–cold war spy program in America. Spymaster, defector, double and triple agent, this is a direct account of what the man known only as Comrade J did in the United States after we all assumed the spying was over and of what Putin and Russia continue to do today....

In this timely and revealing portrait, distinguished author and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby crosses eight time zones and covers 10,000 miles, from Murmansk in the Arctic Circle to the Asian city of Vladivostok, in an attempt to get beneath the skin of modern Russia. Travelling by road, rail and boat, his epic journey takes him from the splendour of St Petersburg to remote parts of Siberia. Jonathan was the only British television journalist to interview President Gorbachev during the Cold War, and, returning to Russia for the first time since those days, he discovers a land transformed. But despite economic progress, he finds aspects of Russian society deeply troubling, and takes an unflinchingly critical look at the way Russia has been run during the Putin years. For Jonathan, crossing the immense Russian landmass became as much an interior journey as an exterior one. Filled with a dazzling array of historical and literary references, this is a riveting and illuminating account of modern Russia....