Putin, Russia and the West

It’s June 2001. US president George W Bush meets Russian president Vladimir Putin, and declares he looked him in the eye and 'got a sense of his soul'. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice recall the discomfort they felt during the meeting. But Rice, the only Bush adviser in the private talks, reveals that, three months before 9/11, Putin gave Bush a prophetic warning about Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban. After 9/11, Putin describes how he convinced his shocked colleagues that Russia should align with the West. Sergei Ivanov, Russian's defence minister, tells how the Taliban secretly offered to join forces with Russia against America.

This 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. The opposition candidate, Victor Yushchenko, tells what it was like to be poisoned during the election campaign. It won him many voters and exit polls gave him a clear lead, but the Putin/Kuchma-backed candidate was still declared the winner. This result sparked the Orange Revolution. Kremlin officials tell how they made sure that Putin would not face a similar revolution at home. It is claimed critics of Putin, including the British ambassador, were intimidated and some were even murdered. Tens of thousands of young Russians were mobilised to fight the threat of democracy.

This 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.

This final episode 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. After becoming US President Obama began talks with Medvedev, and the two agreed to reduce their respective stocks of nuclear weapons. But inside Russia, Medvedev had a harder time, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. In the end, he stepped aside and nominated Putin to be their party's presidential candidate for the 2012 election. Top Kremlin insiders tell how the deal was done.