Precis

He started as a low-level spy. He ended up president for life. For two decades, former Moscow correspondent Eric Campbell has tracked Putin’s rise to power, speaking with his school teacher, friends, patrons and enemies.

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 ascent to power, 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 has 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.

Episode tease.  Putin through time montage

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: He started as a reformer vowing to defend democracy.

00:10

PUTIN: Freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of media, property rights. These basic elements of a civilised society will be protected by the State.

00:16

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: He turned into a dictator threatening humanity.

00:33

PUTIN: If someone decides to annihilate Russia, we have the legal right to respond. Yes, it will be a global catastrophe for humanity, a global catastrophe for the world. But still, as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state ,I ask myself a question: why do we need a world without Russia?

00:39

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: How did it come to this and how much further will Putin go? This is a story two decades in the making.

01:07

Title: Becoming Putin

01:19

Archival. Eric to camera

"Eric Campbell, ABC News, Moscow."

In 1999 I was living in Russia as the ABC's Moscow correspondent

01:25

Eric to camera. Super:
Eric Campbell
Reporter

when a man few Russians had even heard of suddenly came to power. The appointment of Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister, and within months his anointment as President, was a shock and a mystery.

01:34

Putin montage

Was this former KGB spy really a democrat as his backers claimed, or a hardliner? Was he a potential friend of the West as his diplomats hoped, or an inevitable enemy?

01:47

Eric to camera

Well, for more than 20 years I've been following his rule as the world tried to work out who he really was.

02:04

Putin Babushka doll. Title: PART 1
THE SPY AND THE DEMOCRAT
The 1990s

Music

02:12

Kukli TV set

LYUBIMIROV: Attention! Quiet. Action!

02:19

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: It's hard to imagine now, but when Putin first emerged Russians could ridicule their rulers. In early 2000, I visited the set of one of the most popular TV programs, Kukli, meaning puppets. For years, they had made fun of the feeble and apparently alcoholic president, Boris Yelstin. Now, they were wrestling with a new rubbery figure, who'd just been named acting president. Their director, Grigory Lyubimirov, admitted they were struggling.

02:27

Lyubimirov interview

LYUBIMIROV: From the beginning of the new year, new century and new millennium, Russia has a new leader, and just as for Western people, he is not very well-known to us.

03:02

Kukli excerpts

Music

03:18

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Their first idea was to make him the evil Mr Hyde to Yeltsin's Dr Jekyll. Later they settled on a young but menacing Napoleon.

03:23

PUPPET: "We demand democratic reforms!"

PUTIN PUPPET: "It appears you have something to say?"

PUPPET: "Aah..."

PUTIN PUPPET: "Come on, with me you can be honest."

03:34

Soviet statues

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: I'd been living in Russia for four years watching a country struggle with its newfound freedom.

03:57

Archival. Eric with Gorbachev

04:06

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had overseen the collapse of the Soviet Union into 15 separate countries.

04:10

Archival. Yeltsin with world leaders

Boris Yeltsin was steering Russia from communism to capitalist democracy and it was a wild ride.

04:18

Archival.  Rich and poor Russians

The State had nearly fallen apart as Western-backed reformers sold off public assets on the cheap. A few grew astonishingly rich while most struggled to survive, wondering why their superpower was now a beggar state.

04:37

Archival. Putin out of limousine and with Yeltsin

Suddenly, a shadowy bureaucrat was promising to make Russia great again.

04:57

Archival. Eric into apartment

In a report for Foreign Correspondent, I traced Putin's unremarkable origins in post-war Leningrad, now renamed Saint Petersburg. I visited the shabby communal apartment where he grew up. Then, as now, three families shared one toilet and one stove.

05:11

Archival. Eric at school, with teacher

I went to his old school, where his teacher told me she barely remembered him.

TEACHER: I did recall him. But for a long time I couldn't remember. I've been asked if I taught Putin and I say 'I can't remember, that was 30 years ago.' Volodya Putin was not a leader."

05:36

Archival. Putin montage.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Nor did he appear to be a democrat. After studying law, he joined the ruthless Soviet spy agency, the KGB. His job disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but his old law lecturer threw him a lifeline.

05:58

Archival. Sobchak addresses council. Putin at his side

Professor Anatoly Sobchak was now the liberal mayor of Saint Petersburg and hired young Vladimir as his deputy.

06:16

Archival. Sobchak interview

ANATOLY SOBCHAK: He understands what a market economy is, what private property is.

06:25

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: But Putin came from the KGB and the KGB was the enemy of democracy.

06:32

ANATOLY SOBCHAK: Different people worked in the KGB, people who cared about the State, about their country, and Putin belongs to that group of intelligence officers.

06:37

Archival. Putin montage

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin's lucky break would change history. The KGB veteran proved adept at capitalism, managing the city's property deals, many of them with a stench of corruption. Putin's loyal discretion gained the attention of Yeltsin, who made him head of the KGB's domestic successor, the FSB. And it was here that he really proved his worth.

06:54

Archival. Skuratov with prostitutes

Yeltsin's family was facing a corruption investigation. In what seemed a classic KGB sting, the chief prosecutor Yuri Skuratov was filmed with two prostitutes, and the tape was leaked to TV.

07:22

Putin publicly authenticated the video ending the corruption investigation.

07:44

Archival. Putin

PUTIN: My views are well known. They are the same as those of the President and the Prime Minister. Skuratov has to resign.

07:49

Archival. Yeltsin

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Weeks later, Yeltsin named Putin Prime Minister and preferred successor.

07:57

News report. Super:
ABC News 1999

ARCHIVAL ERIC: The immediate reaction was shock and disbelief. The rouble fell sharply and the stock market plunged 10 per cent. Few analysts give the Kremlin loyalist much chance of winning the presidential elections. Many suspect a darker agenda.

08:05

Archival. Collapsed apartment block

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin would soon make himself highly electable.

08:22

Archival. Eric to camera

ARCHIVAL ERIC:  Police have not yet ruled out foul play in this disaster.

08:27

Archival. Chechnya war

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Apartment blocks started toppling across Russia. Prime Minister Putin blamed terrorists from the breakaway republic of Chechnya and mounted a full-scale invasion. Thousands of civilians were killed in Chechnya.

08:29

Chechnya war. Bodies in field.

08:48

Archival. Tanks. Super:
ABC News 1999. Eric reports

ARCHIVAL ERIC:  But this is a popular war in Russia. Most blame Chechens for recent terrorist bombings that killed almost 300 people. And all the while the military build-up continues. Concerns about the civilian carnage is having no effect whatsoever on the conduct of this war.

08:56

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The apparent success on the battlefield gave Putin the popularity he needed.

09:12

Archival. Putin into President

In March 2000, he won what would prove to be Russia's last relatively free presidential election. The Putin era had begun.

09:20

Putin Babushka dolls. Title: PART II
I AM THE NEWS
THE EARLY 2000s

Music

09:36

Kukli TV set

09:45

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: A year into Putin's presidency, the Kukli program was wrestling with a new problem. It had boldly continued to satirise Putin and his unpopular administration.

PUPPET 1: "There are problems with power and heat."

PUPPET PUTIN: "What?"

PUPPET 1: "Heat and power."

PUPPET PUTIN: :What problems?"

PUPPET 1: "Well, there's no heat and no power."

09:52

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin's office was now demanding they stop using the Putin puppets.

LYUBIMIROV: The Putin you see today is the fourth variant

10:17

Lyubimirov with Putin puppet

and in our opinion this is a nice, attractive and kind person, and we're surprised that the President doesn't like it. See, an open face, blue eyes, a very pleasant face.

10:26

Archival. NTV raids

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The government had begun a crackdown on all independent media, starting with Kukli's station, NTV.  Authorities had mounted dozens of raids, interrogating hundreds of staff. I spent a week at the station as the Kremlin tried to install its own management.

10:41

Russian news report

Russian NEWS:  Journalists don't accept the new management's credentials and will safeguard free speech to the end.

11:05

ARCHIVAL ERIC:  The Kremlin insists it's simply an investigation of financial fraud.

11:14

Archival. Eric to camera

But it could see the Kremlin take over Russia's last independent television network. Many here fear it marks the beginning of the end of Russian democracy.

11:18

Kiselyov in news studio

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: NTV's general director Yevgeny Kiselyov said Putin was showing his true colours.

KISELYOV: Yes, I think that Mr Putin is not a democrat and not a liberal.

11:28

Kiselyov interview

I am quite convinced that Mr Putin is an opportunist. You can have NTV shut down or at least taken over so that NTV would not report about corruption, crime, drugs or Chechen war. You will have virtual reality as if everything is okay, everything's fine.

11:40

Russian parliament

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin already had that virtual reality in Parliament. The remnants of the Communist Party, a determined foe of Boris Yeltsin, had sensed the change of wind and fallen into line behind Putin. The only real opposition left was a small liberal party Yabloko, led by Grigory Yavlinsky. He told me Putin was sending a message to all media.

12:05

Yavlinsky interview

YAVLINSKY: It's enough to make a demonstration, it's enough to give the example, it's enough to make a strong and well-known precedent and then everything is made in the same way, easily.

12:31

Yavlinsky addresses crowd

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Yavlinsky made a stand for NTV and failed.

YAVLINSKY: "The destruction of freedom of speech will go down in history."

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: NTV was swallowed up by the Kremlin, Kiselyov and the rebel journalists were sacked.

12:46

Kiselyov addresses colleagues

With television now under Putin's control, he was able to shape the message -- Russia was growing stronger, the humiliation of the 1990s was over. In the 2003 parliamentary elections Yabloko failed to win a single seat.

13:01

Yavlinsky in parliament

Grigory Yavlinsky told me he wouldn't even bother voting in the next presidential election.

13:20

Yavlinsky interview

YAVLINSKY: We failed to explain to the voters that democracy can be real. They don't believe it anymore.

13:26

Putin Babushka dolls. Title: PART III
A TSAR IS BORN
THE LATE 2000s

Music

13:36

Putin in church

13:46

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin was becoming more a tsar than a president. The Russian Orthodox Church had thrown its full support behind the Kremlin. Father Vsevelod, the spokesman for the Moscow Patriarch, welcomed the opposition's demise.

13:52

FATHER VSEVELOD:  The liberal opposition only exists in the Western media. I'm very much surprised that even one per cent of the population has supported certain of the extreme liberal parties. In fact, they totally failed.

14:16

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: What's more, he told me their failure was a blessing -- Western democracy being alien to Russian tradition.

14:34

14:41

Father Vsevelod bathing in icy water

FATHER VSEVELOD: If a society is divided along the commercial interest or political convictions, it's illness.

14:46

Vsevelod interview

It's not a creative conflict and we always opt for unity of the society.

14:55

Youth summer camp

Music

15:01

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin wasn't taking any chances. He'd formed a Putin Youth group to target opposition rallies. It was a response to youth-led colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine that had brought pro-Western leaders to power. At a summer camp, these young counter-revolutionaries were even given military training. Putin held forth to them on a growing obsession -- Western attempts to weaken Russia.

15:09

Putin at youth summer camp

PUTIN: "They have to change their brains, not our Constitution. I'll tell you why. What they suggest is basically colonial thinking.

15:43

Putin on jet boat

15:59

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: With democracy out of the way, Putin was starting to move on his real agenda, restoring Russian might.

16:02

Putin parliamentary speech

In 2005 he'd made a stunning speech revealing his nostalgia for the Soviet Union.

16:11

PUTIN:  "First, we must recognise that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. For the Russian people, it has become a real drama. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and compatriots found themselves outside the Russian territory."

16:18

St. Basil's Cathedral GVs

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: It wasn't Soviet communism he missed. Like the Russian Orthodox Church, he was pining for the Russian empire.

FATHER VSEVELOD: Not the Soviet Union,

16:40

Vsevelod interview

but the historical Russia, with dozens of millions of people who are speaking Russian, who are Russians, remaining nowadays in other States. This is a national catastrophe.

16:51

Putin in gym with Medvedev

Music

17:09

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Russia still had a democratic constitution with a two-limit term for the presidency. But that was a technicality Putin easily overcame, putting forward his protégé and gym buddy Dmitry Medvedev to take over for a term while Putin ruled as Prime Minister.

17:27

Putin and Medvedev lunch

Music

17:46

Medvedev speech

MEDVEDEV: "The major thing for the progress of our country is to continue quiet, stable development."

17:51

Putin with Medvedev

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: As expected, Medvedev would be Putin's puppet until he could formally resume the presidency four years later. Putin would continue to have vocal critics, but one by one they would meet untimely ends.

18:00

Putin Babushka dolls. Title: PART IV
VLADIMIR THE UNDERPANTS POISONER
2011 to 2021

Music

18:17

Novaya Gazeta offices

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: By 2011, Russia's last independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta had a sickening tally of murdered reporters.

18:26

Photos. Murdered reporters

Six had been poisoned, beaten to death or shot, including chief investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, gunned down outside her Moscow apartment.

18:36

Elena with Eric in Novaya Gazeta office

ELENA MILASHINA: Here she was sitting when she was alive and working in Novaya Gazeta.

18:47

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Elena Milashina took over her role and the target on her back that came with it, and would later have to flee the country.

ELENA MILASHINA:  I feel angry.

18:57

Elena interview

I'm not feeling any fear any more. I have to do what I have to and let it be what it be. So that's the country. It's not the paper, it's not that I will be safe if I quit journalism. Nobody's safe in this country. The difference between people and me is that I understand that.

19:06

Putin sings at charity event

[singing]

19:36

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The growing number of dead critics hadn't stopped Putin being feted as an intriguing, even sexy, world leader. At this 2010 charity event in Saint Petersburg he was joined by Hollywood celebrities like Goldie Hawn, Sharon Stone and Monica Bellucci.

19:52

Putin activities

On State TV he was regularly taking his shirt off, posing as an alpha male he-man in a world of insipid liberals.

20:16

Anti-Putin protest

But against the odds, some liberals were still risking all to oppose him, among them the man once tipped to be Yeltsin's successor.

20:44

Nemtsov addresses protest

BORIS NEMTSOV: "I believe we will surely have justice. I believe Putin must be made to resign. Russia must be free of Putin! Russia free of Putin! Russia free of Putin! Down with the thieves! Down with the thieves!"

20:53

Nemtsov press conference

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Boris Nemtsov was Yeltsin's deputy Prime Minister, but he'd just done jail time for unauthorised protests.\

ARCHIVAL ERIC: Mr Nemtsov, 12 years ago many people said you would be president - instead Mr Putin got the job and he's just put you in gaol. Do you regret the way things have turned out?

21:12

NEMTSOV: Yeltsin made a mistake. He got his successors mixed up.

21:32

Stills. Nemtsov murder

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Four years later, Nemtsov was shot dead while strolling past the Kremlin.

21:28

Navalny with supporters

There was still one opposition politician who Putin feared, so much so that State TV was ordered to never even mention his name.

21:53

Navalny addresses rally

NAVALNY: "I refuse to listen to this talk that we have to tighten our belts more. Do you want to tighten your belt?"

CROWD: "No!"

NAVALNY:" I don't. I'm going to the elections to unite people. I am travelling from town to town and saying, "Guys, stop putting up with it. How long are we going to wait?""

22:03

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Alexei Navalny was no Western-style liberal. He had been expelled from the Yabloko party for his hard-line nationalist views and even supported Putin's annexation of Crimea. The government had banned him from running for president through a bogus fraud conviction. He told me it didn't matter.

22:25

Eric with Navalny

"The government says you can't become a candidate until 2028. What can you do about that?"

NAVALNY: The government would prefer I never become a candidate at all, never campaign, never investigate corruption. I am not interested in what the government thinks. I am going to these elections to change the government, to remove them from power.

22:44

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: What drove Navalny and his popularity was outrage at Kremlin corruption.

23:08

Drone video of Putin's walled estate

Navalny's team flew drones over the walled estates of Putin's inner circle, exposing the world class theft of Putinists like the stunt president Dmitry Medvedev.

23:14

Navalny YouTube video

NAVALNY: "Oh those devilish villains from the Kremlin."

23:29

Drone video of Putin's walled estate

We fly back. Total area of residency is 80 hectares. That's like three Kremlins or 30 Red Squares. We can't even estimate its market price. A renovated historic manor, several houses, a swimming pool, a hotel, a ski slope, underground facilities. We estimate to build such a complex would cost 25 to 30 billion roubles $US 424 to 509 million).Here is a giant chessboard where Dmitry Medvedev can be king and crush rebellious figures.

23:35

YouTube video

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Tens of millions watched Navalny's weekly YouTube programs. Until suddenly, like many Putin critics, death came knocking.

24:06

Navalny on stretcher from plane to ambulance

NEWS REPORTER: "We're getting reports that opposition politician Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a Siberian hospital."

24:15

Photos. Navalny in hospital and recovering

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Amazingly, he survived what turned out to be poisoning by Novichok, a Russian military nerve agent.

24:20

Navalny phone call with FSB agent. Maria Pevchikh beside him.

NAVALNY: "Hello, my name is Maxim Sergeevich Ustinov. I'm an assistant of Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev."

24:30

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Recuperating in Germany, he pulled off one of the most astonishing stings in spy history, cold calling the FSB hit team assigned to poison him. He tricked one of them into confessing how they tried to remove the evidence.

24:36

AGENT: "We cleaned them and applied some solutions so that no traces could be found."

24:52

NAVALNY: "Well, what clothing did you focus on? What posed the most risk?"

AGENT: "The underpants."

NAVALNY: "Underpants."

25:07

AGENT "We focussed on the inner seams. At least they were the parts we treated."

25:20

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Maria Pevchikh is the head of his investigations team.

MARIA PEVCHIKH: "To be honest, that was the most unbelievable day in my career."

25:25

Navalny YouTube video

Music

25:34

Drone shots, mansion by Black Sea

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Their next coup was releasing an investigation into a Black Sea palace they alleged belonged to Putin.

25:38

NAVALNY: "A chateau, wineries, an oyster farm and endless luxury."

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: He had apparently come a long way from a crowded communal apartment in Leningrad.

25:45

MARIA PEVCHIKH: We have investigated its history and how ownership changed, to prove that this palace has been built for Vladimir Putin by his friends, by the oligarchs, and the place is so expensive that it is probably the biggest bribe ever given in the history of bribing.

25:57

Navalny. Return to Russia/ Protests

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Navalny bravely returned to Russia and was thrown in jail. Foreign Correspondent filmed the massive protests that erupted across Russia.

26:22

CROWD: "Putin is a thief! Putin is a thief!... Freedom! Freedom!"

26:34

Navalny trial

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: At his trial, off camera but recorded on a mobile phone, Navalny delivered what may be the greatest put down of the Russian century.

26:51

NAVALNY: "There was Tsar Alexander the Liberator and Yaroslav the Wise. Now we have Vladimir the Underpants Poisoner.

27:00

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Navalny was now silenced, but he had shown what Putin perhaps fears most -- people who fight to the bitter end who don't fear Putin.

27:12

Putin Babushka dolls. Title: PART V
THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES 2022

Music

27:23

Putin in Security Council meeting

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin's obsession with obedience was on stark display in February when he forced his Security Council to publicly back his plans for Ukraine. His spy chief could barely speak without stammering.

27:22

PUTIN: "Speak plainly."

SPY CHIEF:  "I would support or I am supporting..."

PUTIN: "'Would support or am supporting.' Speak plainly Sergei. Speak, speak plainly."

SPY CHIEF: "I am supporting the proposal."

27:50

Kulki excerpt

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: I couldn't help but think back to the Kukli program in 2000, when they portrayed him as Napoleon.

PUPPET:  "We demand democratic reforms!"

PUPPET PUTIN: "It appears you have something to say?"

PUPPET: "Aah…"

28:09

Ukraine conflict

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Like Napoleon, Putin has embarked on a war of conquest to redraw the map of Europe. And like the French emperor, he's made himself ruler for life.

28:30

Youth rally

PUTIN: "Whoever tries to hinder us or threaten our country

28:44

should know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to consequences that you've never experienced in your history."

28:51

Military chiefs

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin's invasion of Ukraine is the culmination of his dream to rebuild a Russian empire that once stretched across Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and the Baltics.

29:02

Eric with Yekatarina and Tikhon in restaurant

Yekatarina Kotrikadze is one of Russia's leading journalists and like many has chosen exile to have the freedom to keep reporting.

29:15

YEKATARINA: He doesn't care about anyone. Civilians in Georgia, members of Russian army, Russian soldiers has never been a problem for this person. So any amount of victims is all right for him as we can see right now in Ukraine.

29:26

Ukrainian conflict

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: But like Napoleon invading Russia, he has found in Ukraine an enemy who doesn't fear him and won't surrender.

29:47

Music

29:56

Putin. Various

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The Putin we see today is a different man to the opaque bureaucrat I saw emerge in 1999, claiming to support free speech and democracy. And he is not the same figure who once paraded shirtless to prove his masculine strength against weak Western rivals.

30:11

Nearing 70, he is suddenly looking old, his face mysteriously bloated, his health a matter of open speculation. Many hope this accidental president will soon pass into history after an improbably long rule. We can only hope his nuclear weapons don't turn Russia's tragedy into a nightmare for us all.

30:31

Credits [see below]

Music

30:55

Out point

30:55