Because the possibilities of President Donald Trump’s peace deal in Ukraine apparently recede, consideration turns again to the query of Vladimir Putin and his warfare goals. What does the Russian president need to succeed in from the battle? And when – and below what stipulations – will he be keen to make peace? 1000’s of lives and billions of bucks hinge at the solutions to those questions.
Essential insights into Putin’s worldview in this and different issues can also be gleaned from a brand new 90-minute documentary, “Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 Years,” launched via the state broadcaster Rossiya on Might 4, 2025, and to be had on YouTube.
The documentary appears again on Putin’s quarter century in energy.
I see the movie because the Kremlin’s try to make its case to the Russian public. The movie explains how Putin sees his position in historical past and why he’s waging the warfare on Ukraine. Its unencumber coincides with the commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the top of International Struggle II in Europe, which Russia marks on Might 9, versus Might 8 in the remainder of Europe.
As can be anticipated from a Kremlin-sponsored take a look at Russia’s chief, it’s extra hagiography than hard-hitting journalism. However as a student who has tracked Russia’s post-Soviet slide into authoritarianism, it’s however revealing. It presentations us the picture that Putin needs to challenge to the Russian public, one who has been somewhat constant all the way through his time in place of business.
Softening the strongman
The movie begins with the dependable and rather obsequious journalist Pavel Zarubin interviewing Putin on the finish of his lengthy operating day within the Kremlin, at 1:30 a.m. The chat with Zarubin is interspersed with archival photos of key occasions and previous speeches via Putin.
Putin presentations Zarubin round his rental, which incorporates a chapel, a gymnasium – Putin says he works out for 90 mins each day – and a kitchen, through which Putin awkwardly prepares snacks for his or her chat. The rooms are immaculate however dead, albeit with a surfeit of gold leaf.
The brand new documentary is thoroughly curated with clips appearing Putin as a humble guy of the folks. “I don’t consider myself a politician, I breathe the same air as millions of citizens of Russia,” he says at one level. We don’t see anything else of his chain of lavish palaces, yachts and different belongings.
Whilst Putin’s foremost symbol within the out of doors international is that of a ruthless strongman, for home audiences the Kremlin has attempted to melt this symbol.
Right here, the documentary is treading acquainted flooring. At the eve of Putin’s election in Might 2000, the Kremlin printed an autobiography and launched a documentary filled with heartwarming anecdotes about Putin’s early life and day-to-day lifestyles. The picture being put ahead contrasted to the realities of his early presidency, when Russia was once waging a brutal warfare in Chechnya.
Blaming the West
A not unusual thread operating in the course of the movie is Putin’s dedication to restoring the sovereignty and independence of Russia, which he sees as below risk via the Western powers. Prominently displayed at the back of Putin within the rental is a portrait of Czar Alexander III, it appears a job style for Putin. Alexander III isn’t widely known within the West. An avowed nationalist, all the way through his brief rule from 1881 to 1894 he pursued financial modernization and have shyed away from beginning any overseas wars.
Vladimir Putin, below the watch of Czar Alexander III.
YouTube/Rossiya
The movie is weighted down with anti-West propaganda. It argues that Western powers have been at the back of the motion for independence in Chechnya, which threatened to damage aside the Russian Federation. Putin is going directly to blame the West for the present “special military operation” in Ukraine. Within the Russian president’s telling, it was once the West’s failure to put in force the Minsk accords of 2014-2015, which have been intended to carry peace to the restive Donbas area in jap Ukraine. He means that the West used the Minsk accords as “a pause in order to prepare for a war with Russia.”
Zarubin asks Putin, “Why does the West hate us, do they envy us?” It’s a query that launches Putin right into a potted abstract of one,000 years of Russian historical past.
Early in Putin’s presidency he have been open to cooperation with the West, taking tea with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace and creating shut relationships with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.
However because the 2012 demonstrations protesting his go back to the presidency, Putin has increasingly more used the argument that the West has deserted “traditional values” via selling problems equivalent to homosexual rights.
Russian revisionism
That is the primary main reputable biographical documentary of Putin because the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it can be the nearest we can get to an evidence of why Putin introduced this warfare.
There’s a lengthy feel-good section concerning the “unification” of Crimea with Russia in 2014, which is gifted as an important fulfillment of Putin’s time in place of business.
The movie presentations photographs of destruction and struggling all the way through the present warfare in Ukraine, with out declaring that it was once Russia that began the warfare. It presentations the devastated town of Mariupol and states incorrectly that the town was once “destroyed” via Ukrainians.
The documentary portrays the warfare in Ukraine as an immediate continuation of International Struggle II and a combat towards the “neo-Nazi” regime in Kyiv allegedly created via the West as a part of its purpose to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia.
The movie presentations Putin visiting wounded infantrymen and assembly the widows and mom of fallen warriors. Putin thank you the ladies for his or her sacrifice – they usually thank him for the chance to serve the motherland. This illustrates some of the central topics of the Kremlin worldview: that Russia is robust as a result of its individuals are in a position to sacrifice themselves.
Any other 25 years?
Zarubin asks, “Is it possible to make peace with the Ukrainian part of the Russian people?” It’s phraseology that denies the lifestyles of Ukraine as a sovereign country.
Putin replies, “It is inevitable despite the tragedy we are experiencing.”
He expresses feel sorry about that there are most effective 150 million Russians – as a really perfect energy, Russia wishes extra other people. He additionally suggests he would possibly want extra territory, one thing that shall be alarming for Russia’s neighbors. In a single clip, Putin asks a boy, “Where do the borders of Russia end?” The boy solutions, “The Bering Strait with USA.” And Putin responds, “The borders of Russia never end.”
This framing additionally means that Putin isn’t curious about a peace maintain Ukraine through which Russia would see most effective restricted territorial features, which places the breakdown of talks over a possible U.S.-sponsored deal in context.
Requested concerning the contemporary falling out between Trump and Europe sparked partially via Washington’s extra pro-Russian stance, Putin solutions, “Nothing has changed since Biden’s time,” including that the “collective West” remains to be bent on destroying Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sunbathes all the way through a 2017 holiday in southern Siberia.
Alexey Nikolsky/SPUTNIK/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Towards the top of the documentary, Zarubin asks whether or not Putin is considering opting for a successor. The Russian president says he continuously thinks about succession and would favor a decision between a number of applicants. However this system does now not supply any clues as to who that successor may well be – and not one of the possible successors are given any publicity.
The Russian other people had been instructed for years that it’s not possible to believe Russia with out Putin. This movie lies firmly in that custom.
The primary meant message is obvious: Putin is keen and ready to struggle on till he achieves victory on his personal phrases.
