Putin: The New Empire

Follows the man who survived an assassination attempt by poisoning with a lethal nerve agent in August 2020. During his months-long recovery, he makes shocking discoveries about the attempt on his life and decides to return home.

In 2008, Natasha, a newly rich woman, decides to open an independent TV station in Russia and builds an open-minded team of outcasts. By 2020, Natasha has lost everything to Russia's war between Propaganda and Truth.

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…

In the winter of 2011, after a controversial election, Vladimir Putin was reinstalled as president of Russia. In response, hundreds of thousands of citizens rose up all over the country to challenge the legitimacy of Putin’s rule. Among them were a group of young, radical-feminist punk rockers, better known as Pussy Riot. Wearing colored balaclavas, tights, and summer dresses, they entered Moscow’s most venerated cathedral and dared to sing “Mother Mary, Banish Putin!” Now they have become victims of a “show” trial.

Tells the story of five people from the last generation of Soviet children who were brought up behind the Iron Curtain. Just coming of age when the USSR collapsed, they witnessed the world of their childhood crumble and change beyond recognition. Through the lives of these former schoolmates, this intimate film reveals how they have adjusted to their post-Soviet reality in today's Moscow.

Through a first-person narrator, archival footage and photographs, and a contemporary camera, Pavel Lounguine uses the Moscow skyscraper where he grew up as a touchstone for looking back to Stalin and then examining today's Russia. This is Stalin's pyramid, his immortality. We visit people who have lived there for 50 years, see their flats (some modernized, others decaying), and listen to their histories: the son of a KGB man, a retired rocket scientist, a sculptor's son. an actor, seamstresses at a uniform shop, an ex-pat, and two artists. We see a kindergarten and remember marching; we watch parades and discuss surveillance. The commentary is wry: Putin emerges as Stalin's heir.

"Revealing Ukraine" by Igor Lopatonok continues investigations on of the ongoing Ukrainian crisis following "Ukraine on Fire". In addition, it analyzes the current political backstage and its dangerous potential for the world.

The incredible story of the Russian plot to kill politician Alexei Navalny - by poisoning his underpants. Plus, what will happen next in Navalny and Putin's dangerous feud?

Fiona Shaw narrates this exploration of Russia's medieval origins through to its bloody expansion to become the biggest country in the world. It's a tale that set the scene for one of the world's most enigmatic figures, and his vision of modern Russia. From a tyrannical grip on ordinary citizens to rampant corruption at the highest level, this film reveals the secrets behind holding the world's largest country together in a narrative that takes in the KGB and its ancestors as well as Stalin, murder and gulags.

Russia, 1917. After the abdication of Czar Nicholas II Romanov, the struggle for power confronts allies, enemies, factions and ideas; a ruthless battle between democracy and authoritarianism that will end with the takeover of the government by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Freed from the shackles of communism in the 1990s, Russia seemed to be entering an era of rebirth. But as is often the case in that country, history unfolded harshly. For the majority of Russians, the transition to a market system was painful and chaotic - and anything but democratic. Amid the confusion, a few shrewd and ruthless businessmen exploited the loopholes in the Soviet economy to make fast money, staving off a return to communist rule. Nicknamed the oligarchs, these men, all billionaires, manoeuvred their way into Russia's political inner circle during glasnost, are credited with Boris Yeltsin's re-election in 1996, and suspected of anointing Vladimir Putin in 1999. They're powerful men with powerful enemies, and they continue to shape Russian society. Dizzying in its detail, The Rise and Fall of the Russian Oligarchs puts modern-day Russia into perspective.

After twenty years in power, Vladimir Putin continues to implement his geopolitical strategy with Russia’s comeback on the big stage of world politics. He already announced his ambitions in 2007 – and still, it seems like the western governments were hit completely unprepared. What is behind this repeat of the Cold War?

Moscow, January 1996. Boris Yeltsin gets ready to run for a second mandate of the presidency of the young Russian Federation. Polls are in the single digits. A painful economic transition, war in Chechnya, and the rise of criminal groups have left the majority of Russians dissatisfied with Yeltsin… and willing to vote for the communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. Yet six months later, Yeltsin won the election with nearly 54% of the vote. How did that happen?

More than twenty years after Vladimir Putin came to supreme power in Russia on May 7, 2000, Russian society is deeply divided. A young, modern generation opposes the growing repression by the regime, which still retains the support of many members of previous generations. Who are these ordinary citizens who dream of living in a different Russia? What price will they have to pay to achieve the freedom and justice they so desire?

Putin, Russia and the West is a four-part British documentary television series first shown in January and February 2012 on BBC Two about the relationship between Vladimir Putin's Russia and the West. The series is produced by Norma Percy, whose previous series include The Death of Yugoslavia, Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace, and Iran and the West. The documentary was criticized by some dissidents for being an apology for Putin's regime.

The acclaimed documentary series from 1991 that examined political in-fighting in the Soviet Union and the battle for perestroika.

When starving mobs begin rioting in the streets of Moscow, Soviet leaders believe they have no recourse but to seize the Alaskan pipeline to force the United States to end the grain embargo that has brought turmoil to the U.S.S.R.

The rise of Stalin, from his early beginning as a bankrobber to the cold-blooded leader of the Soviet Union.

The Internet can be a powerful tool, allowing people to communicate and conduct business across borders. Unfortunately, that also makes it easy for people to, often anonymously, threaten others -- or worse -- post content that they don't like. This series tells stories of folks whose lives were ruined because they did something as simple as sending a tweet or posting a status update. Each episode features two people whose lives were turned upside down because of a few keystrokes. The true tales include a woman who received death threats for sending a tweet calling for a cable show's cancellation, a British man who was detained by the Department of Homeland Security because British slang was misunderstood, and a woman who was forced to move out of her town because of violent threats directed toward her for using the wrong emoji on Facebook.

Following the success of their 2015 election comedy Ballot Monkeys, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin (Ballot Monkeys, Outnumbered, Drop the Dead Donkey) return to Channel 4 with a six-part satire lampooning the fictional communications and social media ‘experts’ on both sides of the EU referendum, as well as taking audiences a few doors down from the Kremlin and into the imagined world of Donald Trump’s campaign plane.

The KGB has influenced world events on numerous occasions before. Assassinations, coup d’états, theft of nuclear secrets and sexpionage are just standard trademarks for an organisation that still sends shivers down the spines of politicians and military figures the world over. It may have changed its name on various occasions, from Cheka to SPD to OGPU to NKVD to MGB to KGB to an array of different names after the collapse of the Soviet Union to FSB and SVR today, but it will forever be known, internally and externally, as the KGB.

A definitive account of Putin's power and how it changed the modern world.

This two-part documentary pulls back the curtain on Russian collusion in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The weekly puppet-based sketch show that skewers the politicians and celebrities who need it the most. With a cast of characters from Britain, America, and around the world, no one is safe from a satirical roasting.

What it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy. A series of films by Adam Curtis.

From the 2014 seizure of Crimea to the invasion of Ukraine, this is the inside story of a decade of clashes - as told by the Western leaders who traded blows with Putin's Russia.

Katya Adler explores how life is changing for people living on Russia’s border and the consequences of Putin’s war on the west.