I’ve just watched the BBC documentary Putin: the New Tsar, which charts the dictator’s unstoppable rise to power. I am impressed by the extraordinary collection of participants, which includes Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster turned political opponent, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch, Sergei Pugachev, a former member of Putin’s inner circle, Mikheil Saakashvili the former president of Georgia and interestingly, a professor of psychology. It is a brilliant portrait of a narcissist man’s addiction to absolute power.
It was made in 2018, but totally relevant today. If you watch it, you’ll understand why he launched the invasion of Ukraine. As the chess master predicted at the beginning of the documentary: “Putin will invade. The only question is when and where.”
Unfortunately, his prediction has turned out to be true.
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