{an8}[clamoring]
[cheering]
[Glasser] The ending of the Cold War
was essentially seen as sort of a inevitable march of progress.
[clamoring]
{an8}[Glasser] That Western-style democracy and capitalism
{an8}had achieved some kind of definitive and permanent victory
over its adversaries.
And that it was only a matter of time
{an8}before other countries also joined in this great wave of democratization
{an8}and freedom that was coming along with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
[compelling music playing]
[whirring]
[Graff] Of course, it doesn't work out that way,
and the story of the 21st century ends up in many ways
{an8}being the re-emergence of authoritarian nations
{an8}and totalitarian nations
again battling the land of freedom and democracy.
[Browder] But we're in a much worse place than we were in the Cold War.
{an8}The Cold War was cold.
{an8}This is a unstable, hot war
{an8}which could lead to catastrophic outcomes.
{an8}[gunfire]
[loud blast]
[reporter] Russia is in military staged nuclear exercises on Wednesday
under the watchful eye of President Vladimir Putin.
{an8}The drills included multiple practice launches of ballistic missiles
in what Moscow says was a simulated retaliation
for any nuclear attack on Russia.
[indistinct chatter]
[Nichols] I worry about a cataclysm that comes about
that no one expected, no one wanted,
no one understands how it happened.
{an8}That we wake up in the morning and the world is a peaceful place,
{an8}and by that evening, for any number of contingent reasons,
accidents, miscalculation, misunderstanding,
suddenly, we're facing the extinction of billions of people.
And no one will know why it happened.
[opening theme music playing]
[atmospheric music playing]
{an8}I first met Putin in Munich in February 2007,
{an8}at the Munich Security Conference.
I'd been Secretary of Defense for two months.
The setting was kind of interesting because it was in this big hall.
And Putin was right across the aisle from me.
{an8}And next to him, was Chancellor Merkel of Germany.
{an8}And then next to her was the president of Ukraine, Yushchenko,
who believed he had been poisoned at Putin's request.
Putin is the next speaker, and he gets up.
He gives this extraordinary speech
in which he basically blames the United States
for everything wrong in the world.
[in Russian] First and foremost, the United States...
has overstepped its national borders and imposes its policies in all fields.
In economy, in politics, and in the humanitarian sphere.
Who would like it?
[dramatic music playing]
{an8}[in English] Putin makes a big thing about the fact
{an8}that NATO enlargement was always hostile to Russia.
[in Russian] I think it is obvious that NATO expansion
does not have any relation with the modernization of the alliance itself
or with ensuring security in Europe.
On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation
that reduces the level of mutual trust.
{an8}[Glasser, in English] NATO has expanded over time.
[Lyne] The first round of NATO enlargement in the 1990s was Poland and Hungary,
and the Czech Republic.
The second NATO enlargement, in 2004,
would include three countries that were previously inside the Soviet Union.
Three Baltic States.
[Putin, in Russian] We have to ask, against whom is this expansion intended?
And what happened to the assurances
our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?
Where are those declarations now?
No one even remembers them.
[Rice, in English] The Munich speech is dark,
{an8}and it's really coming right at Western power.
{an8}And for the first time, that language about feeling threatened,
{an8}uh, in a sense, by the encirclement and all of that.
[in Russian] We should not forget that the fall of the Berlin Wall
was possible thanks to a historic choice,
one that was also made by our people, the people of Russia.
A choice in favor of democracy, freedom,
openness, and a sincere partnership
with all the members of the big European family.
And now they are trying to impose new dividing lines and walls on us.
[Yushchenko] He was speaking as a tsar.
{an8}As an emperor.
{an8}Giving orders to European politicians telling how to arrange things in Europe.
[Gates, in English] Putin spends the entire speech staring right at me.
Like I'm kind of personally responsible for all this.
[in Russian] Thank you for your attention.
[applause]
[in English] And after he comes down off the stage,
he's coming back to his seat,
he detours, comes straight to me,
extends his hand to shake hands, and invites me to visit Russia.
So we'd had this anti-American panegyric,
and then he ends it by coming over and smiling,
shaking my hand and, you know, like nothing unusual had happened.
I think we saw it mainly as a rant.
But in retrospect, it clearly was a harbinger,
because he clearly was articulating
the views of the West that he has put into practice in the years since 2007.
This set the stage for a growing authoritarianism in Russia,
as Putin tried to reassemble authority in Moscow
and bring these countries back under the influence of Moscow.
And that set the stage long-term for aggression,
for a much more confrontational Russia.
As it was clear that places that had been part of the Soviet Union
were now going to lean more West,
a different Putin started to emerge.
{an8}[Kotrikadze] In 2008, Georgia and Ukraine were planning to become members of NATO,
and were negotiating and were very active.
So Vladimir Putin felt that he was losing them.
They're crucial neighbors of Russian Federation,
and he knew that if he loses both of them,
{an8}then he loses this status of supervisor and big brother
{an8}in a post-Soviet region.
{an8}[in Russian] The claim that this process is not directed against Russia,
{an8}is not accepted.
[tense music plays]
[Hill, in English] European countries, particularly Germany and France,
{an8}and other big players, didn't want to have them brought in.
There was an assessment
that if Georgia and Ukraine were given a membership action plan,
then it was highly likely that Russia would react with military action.
{an8}So what happened at Bucharest
{an8}was that there was a last-minute behind-the-scenes compromise.
{an8}Ukraine and Georgia were not offered a membership action plan,
{an8}but they were told that, at some point, they would get into NATO in the future.
{an8}This proved to be the worst of all worlds because Georgians and Ukrainians
{an8}had no guarantees or protections whatsoever.
- [explosions] - [gunfire]
{an8}[Hill] Then, within a matter of months,
{an8}Russia invaded Georgia on a flimsy pretext.
{an8}[reporter] Columns of Russian tanks and troops
{an8}rolled into the American-backed former Soviet Republic of Georgia today
after a nighttime barrage of artillery fire and rockets.
[Kandelaki] When the army of one country crosses the border of another,
in international law,
that is an act of aggression and an act of war.
A few months after the war,
Russia continued to occupy 20% of the Georgian territory.
It still occupies these territories.
{an8}Georgia was the first occasion
{an8}when Russia used force openly against a country in Europe
after the Second World War,
and it was given a pass.
[Ostrovsky] Nobody stopped buying Russian oil and gas
and nobody stopped, through the oil and gas,
financing the Russian regime and its police state.
And I think the lesson that Putin took away from that was,
{an8}"I can do whatever I want in the former Soviet territories,
{an8}and they're gonna still do business with me as usual."
Russia invaded a sovereign country
and essentially got away with it with a slap on the wrist.
[Hill] And Putin has made it clear since that point that, for him,
any kind of encroachment of the United States, the West, NATO,
into what he sees is the territories of the old Russian Empire,
the Soviet Union,
is an affront and something that he's not going to allow to pass.
[Glasser] After Putin served his first two terms in the presidency,
and in order to get around the ban at that time
{an8}in the Russian constitution of serving more than that,
{an8}he basically gave the role to a placeholder,
{an8}to his longtime advisor and confidant Dmitry Medvedev.
[reporter] Dmitry Medvedev is a little-known politician,
but supported by Vladimir Putin,
he's coasted to victory in Russia's presidential election.
[Glasser] And so Medvedev became the president of Russia.
Putin took the title prime minister.
{an8}[in Russian] The main thing for the development of our country,
{an8}is continuing calm and stable development.
Something our country has been deprived of during the 20th century.
[crowd cheering]
{an8}[Taylor, in English] When President Obama got into office,
{an8}he tried to engineer a reset of relations
{an8}between the United States and Russia.
{an8}[reporter] Today in Geneva, a meeting between Hillary Clinton
{an8}and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, their first big get-together.
She presented him a gift which was supposed to be a reset button.
[Clinton]...represents what President Obama
and Vice President Biden and I have been saying,
and that is, we want to reset our relationship.
And so we will do it together.
[laughter]
[camera shutters clicking]
[Zygar] Medvedev was charmed by Obama.
He wanted to be the Russian Obama so badly.
{an8}He decided that his image should be more pro-Western, more liberal than Putin's.
[reporter] Medvedev presents as a pro-Western liberal,
promising to cut taxes and red tape,
tackle corruption,
and reduce state involvement in big business.
[Glasser] Barack Obama and his advisors decided to invest in Medvedev.
Perhaps he really was the more Western-oriented guy
they'd been looking for all along,
or maybe they thought he'd be a better partner than Vladimir Putin.
{an8}Indeed, I firmly believe
{an8}that America's most significant national security interests and priorities
{an8}could be advanced most effectively through cooperation,
uh, not an adversarial relationship with Russia.
[McFaul] Medvedev allowed civil society to organize.
{an8}Alexei Navalny, his anti-corruption group forms during this period.
{an8}[compelling music playing]
[Navalny, in Russian] Everyone should do some simple things.
Show up and vote on election day, send an SMS to your friends.
[Ashurkov, in English] We started working with Navalny in 2010.
{an8}Many people were talking about corruption at that time in Russia,
{an8}but, uh, he was probably the only one who was doing something about it.
[in Russian] Now I will unite a group of people,
and we will file a complaint with the prosecutor's office
and do everything we can to put a man who stole a billion in prison.
[Zygar, in English] In 2010, I started working as an editor-in-chief
of Russia's only independent news TV channel, called Dozhd.
Usually it's called in English "TV Rain."
[in Russian] I am especially pleased, as a fan of new technologies,
with what you have here.
[Zygar, in English] Medvedev was not the patron of TV Rain,
but he created the atmosphere when it was possible.
We were investigating the corruption cases.
[in Russian] Vladimir Melov, Boris Nemtsov, and Vladimir Ryzhkov
filed a lawsuit against Vladimir Putin for one million rubles...
[Zygar, in English] People start believing that Putin is a crook
and his gang is robbing the whole country.
[Browder] Putin is not a nationalist or a patriot.
{an8}He's a simple financial criminal.
Most major Western banks probably have some of that money.
{an8}Many buildings and villas and mansions in the best locations in the world
{an8}are owned by Russians.
{an8}And this is most likely all illicit money.
{an8}Money that should have been for the Russian people.
For their healthcare, for their education.
Instead, is in all these Western assets.
It has nothing to do with NATO or some grand vision of Russian Empire.
It has to do with him understanding that there's no way you can, in perpetuity,
steal this kind of money and not have the people rise up against you.
{an8}2011 was a very interesting year in Russian history
{an8}because that was the moment when lots of people thought
that finally, the moment is coming to get rid of Putin.
Medvedev was the president, and lots of people's like,
"Well, we need a new generation."
And everybody immediately took it as a sign
that maybe he's really getting serious
about his ambitions as a new Russian leader.
And that made Putin so angry.
Putin still had some popularity,
{an8}and he immediately made it very clear what he wanted to do.
[crowd cheering]
[Glasser] In September 2011,
Putin and Medvedev go to a party conference in Moscow.
[reporter] Side by side, Russia's most powerful men
entered the United Russia Congress to a rock star's welcome.
Then, from the Russian president,
an end to months, if not years, of speculation.
I believe it will be correct if this Congress supports the candidacy
of the party chairman, Vladimir Putin, for the post of president of the country.
[crowd cheering]
They announced, "No, actually, Putin will be coming back to power."
[tense music playing]
[reporter] If Putin wins next March's election,
he has a shot at ruling Russia for 12 more years,
longer than any leader since Joseph Stalin's 30-year tenure
as head of the Soviet Union's Communist Party, ending in 1953.
[Glasser] It becomes clear to people
that this really means that Putin will be the leader for life.
And in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
the more liberal, wealthy parts of the country,
young people take to the streets.
{an8}Enormous protests break out all across Russia.
[in Russian] Russia without Putin! Russia without Putin!
The atmosphere here on Chistoprudny Boulevard is jubilant.
Everyone is making noise, they are chanting.
I can confirm there really are a lot of people here.
[clamoring]
[chanting] Russia without Putin! Russia without Putin!
Russia without Putin!
{an8}[in English] We had 100,000 people in Moscow chanting,
{an8}"Russia without Putin," and, "Putin is a thief."
[protesting in Russian]
[Glasser] I think Putin was shocked by this.
It was a real blow to him.
[crowd clamoring]
[McFaul] What does Putin see there?
He sees the CIA.
{an8}And he blames President Obama.
{an8}He blamed Secretary Clinton.
{an8}And when I show up as ambassador just a few weeks later,
{an8}he blames me for fomenting revolution against him.
{an8}President Medvedev called President Obama about it.
{an8}I was on the call, and he said, "What are you guys doing?"
"Are you trying to foment protest against our government?"
{an8}He's the kind of guy that used to do these kinds of things in other countries.
{an8}[announcer] Vladimir Putin!
{an8}[anchor] Putin tonight declared victory in Russia's presidential elections,
the third time the former KGB man has held the Kremlin's top job.
[reporter] Three of the four other presidential candidates
were tired faces Putin had beaten before,
and the other was widely rumored
to be a Kremlin plant to split the opposition vote.
[crowd cheering]
[in Russian] Thank you to everybody who said "yes" to a great Russia.
[cheering]
[tense music playing]
{an8}[Soldatov, in English] When he had his big day in the Kremlin,
Putin sent anti-riot police to attack.
[crowd chanting in Russian] Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!
[in English] He wanted to show people
that he would not tolerate any more protests.
[Lipman] Those protests were brutally suppressed.
And from then on, the government grew much more oppressive.
[indistinct chatter]
[reporter] A court in Moscow has jailed seven out of eight protesters
accused of rioting and attacking police in a May 2012 demonstration
against President Vladimir Putin.
[Zygar] Putin felt that there is a danger,
and he could be toppled by that pro-democracy crowd,
and that was the reason for him to look for another audience.
And the only alternative to that Democratic ideology
is the Imperial ideology,
and the possibility to bring Russian Empire back.
He needs Russian hardliners to support him
because those people have nostalgia for the Soviet Union.
And that was the moment when he started Imperial propaganda.
[Putin, in Russian] You and I today, at this moment,
we are indeed the defenders of our fatherland.
[crowd cheering]
We remember the wonder, heroes and warriors,
before they went to fight the Battle of Moscow,
who swore their allegiance to the fatherland,
and they dreamed of dying for it.
The battle for Russia continues.
Victory will be ours!
[crowd cheering]
[Putin] Thank you.
[tense music rising]
[Hill, in English] Putin has his own view of what Russia is.
It's shared by his belief that certain people are Russians.
Including Ukrainians.
[Rice] A Ukraine that was controlled by Russia like a puppet,
that would have been okay.
{an8}But an independent Ukraine, no.
{an8}And one that was leaning West, no.
[Taylor] Ukraine is a real democracy.
It's raucous.
{an8}It's flawed, like all democracies.
{an8}It was always an alternation of pro-Russian leader, pro-Western leader.
{an8}[Taylor] President Putin tried to get Viktor Yanukovych elected in 2004.
[crowd cheering]
[Taylor] Viktor Yushchenko won, scarred as he was.
Poisoned by dioxin, almost died.
But there was still a portion of the Ukrainian population
that was still in favor of Yanukovych,
and he continued to be a political candidate.
[announcer] Viktor Yanukovych!
{an8}[Taylor] He became president in 2010.
{an8}[chanting] Yanukovych! Yanukovych!
[Yanukovych, in Russian] Our priorities will include integration into the EU,
and cultivating friendly and constructive relations with the Russian Federation.
[Taylor, in English] And President Putin supported Viktor Yanukovych.
[Ostrovsky] By 2013,
the economic situation in Ukraine was really bad.
{an8}Viktor Yanukovych had been promising his people for months
that he was going to sign a trade agreement with the European Union
that was going to improve Ukraine's economic prospects.
[Rudenko] It was a huge deal for everybody here
{an8}because that meant that Ukraine was committing
{an8}to be on the track to join the EU at some point.
[Taylor] President Putin bribed President Yanukovych $15 billion
and the promise of low gas prices,
if President Yanukovych would give up this attempt to join the European Union.
[reporter] Despite last-minute attempts to get him to change his mind,
Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign up to the free trade deal.
[Ostrovsky] Yanukovych backed out of it at the 11th hour.
And understandably, this made a lot of people angry.
So some students came out onto the Maidan to protest.
Probably would have ended there,
except Yanukovych decided to take a heavy-handed approach.
Sent the riot police down there to beat these young students up.
And it had the opposite effect of what Yanukovych had hoped for.
It caused the protests to double in size, and then to double in size again.
[clamoring]
Yanukovych pulled out all the stops
and set the stage for a violent confrontation.
[clamoring]
[Ostrovsky] The protesters had armed themselves
with sticks and shields and helmets and Molotov cocktails.
And the riot police...
[gunfire]
...suddenly started using live ammunition.
[gunfire echoing]
[Ostrovsky] Snipers and police started opening fire
into the crowds and killing protesters where they stood.
[shouting in Russian]
[man, in English] Both sides are taking casualties.
[gunfire continues]
[clamoring]
[Ostrovsky] And through incredible bravery of the protesters
who were seeing their comrades falling to the ground, lifeless,
they managed to push forward anyway and overpower the police,
{an8}despite the fact that they didn't have any firearms of their own.
I think it was at this stage
that Yanukovych realized that his days were numbered in Ukraine.
He gathered up all his ill-gotten wealth and fled to Russia.
{an8}[suspenseful music playing]
[McFaul] Putin fundamentally doesn't believe in democracy,
and that people would protest for democracy.
He thinks people are cynical, self-interested,
can always be bought off with money. That's his view of us too, by the way.
And so when he sees these mass demonstrations in Ukraine,
or against him...
[protesters chanting in Russian]
...he believes that there's got to be some covert operation behind that.
And remember, he himself was a KGB officer.
When I was a US ambassador,
I used to face questions about the CIA fomenting, you know,
{an8}regime change around the world.
{an8}And I would say, very openly, "Has the CIA been involved in coups?"
{an8}The answer to that is yes, of course.
{an8}In 1953, in Iran against Mosaddegh.
{an8}There are lots of examples of that.
{an8}To the best of my knowledge,
the CIA was not doing that in Ukraine in 2004,
or Russia in 2011.
[crowd chanting in Russian]
[McFaul] Or in Ukraine in 2013 and '14.
But things became very tense because the Russian government believed
that we had just overthrown Putin's guy in Kyiv, Viktor Yanukovych,
who's now in Russia.
And we said we didn't control that, that we were not plotting a coup,
but that is not the way that Vladimir Putin perceived it.
I mean, he just can't believe that this isn't some sinister plot.
I remember very vividly saying,
"There's going to be a response from Moscow."
{an8}And sure enough, days later, that's when he invaded Crimea.
[Glasser] The Crimean Peninsula was long a favorite vacation spot
for the Soviet and the Russian elite.
{an8}It had been made part of the Russian Empire
{an8}back in the 18th century.
{an8}Putin has reminded us of this over and over again.
{an8}It also was a strategic location in a modern-day sense
{an8}because there's this huge Russian navy base there.
[Graff] Vladimir Putin really wants Ukraine back as part of,
{an8}you know, the glory days of the Soviet Union.
{an8}But he very specifically also wants Crimea.
{an8}[unsettling music playing]
[Ostrovsky] In February 2014,
Ukraine was in disarray, as you can imagine.
There was an interim president,
{an8}and there were reports of paramilitaries
{an8}without any country's insignia taking over infrastructure,
administration buildings, and military bases in Crimea,
where the Russian Black Sea Fleet were headquartered.
It was very murky. Nobody knew what was happening.
But the reporters on the ground started to realize
that these were Russians who had been sent in
to take control of the territory for Russia.
[reporter 1] Three airports, two of them used by the military,
are said to be closed and possibly under the control of Russian forces.
[reporter 2] What we appear to be seeing is the sort of beginnings
of a separatist rebellion that is being fueled and facilitated
by the Russian government.
[Ostrovsky] At the time, Russia was trying to pretend that it wasn't involved
and that this was kind of a people power movement in Crimea.
But a lot of the protests were actually staged
by Russia and the Russian military,
and a lot of Russians were bussed in to participate in those protests.
[cheering]
[Putin, in Russian] I address the people of Ukraine.
I would sincerely like you to understand us.
{an8}By no means do we want to do you harm or offend your sense of nationality.
[Ostrovsky, in English] But instead, he annexed Crimea and made it
a constituent territory of Russia.
{an8}And then, shortly thereafter,
{an8}we saw town after town falling to people who declared themselves
{an8}to be pro-Russia separatists in the Eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.
{an8}[reporter] Panic at Donetsk regional TV station.
{an8}Journalists flee to safety, police take up positions
and repel an attack by unidentified gunmen.
[tense music playing]
[Obama] Given its continued provocations in Ukraine,
{an8}today I have approved a new set of sanctions
{an8}on some of Russia's largest companies and financial institutions.
[Graff] The US and other countries issue some sanctions,
but there's very little international outrage.
[Ostrovsky] They didn't punish Putin. They didn't isolate Putin.
They didn't stop buying Putin's oil and gas.
Once again, we see Putin realizing that if he's willing to fight,
then he can essentially get away with what he wants,
and nobody's going to try to stop him.
[Zygar] After the annexation of Crimea,
the military became much more active in cyber.
[reporter] Top Russian general Valery Gerasimov,
who has President Vladimir Putin's ear,
{an8}called for a new kind of warfare.
[Soldatov] For many years, Putin paid no attention to the Internet.
He was mostly obsessed with television.
{an8}He believed that television was a thing which might get him control
of the Russian population.
By 2014, the time of the annexation of Crimea, that changed.
[McFaul] Putin believes that dividing the West,
both between countries and within them,
serves Russia's national interests.
If we're fighting amongst ourselves, we're not fighting against him.
[Applebaum] The modern Russian state
has learned how to use, in particular, social media,
in order to create false narratives
and to make them spread through Western countries,
and they do it in many languages and in many countries.
Whatever seems divisive,
whatever seems likely to cause social tension,
they promote that.
In Germany, they promote the far right.
In some countries, they promoted the far left.
{an8}In the United States, they also promote the far right and of course,
{an8}they promoted famously the campaign of Donald Trump.
{an8}[atmospheric music playing]
{an8}[Glasser] This idea to interfere and to hack the US electoral process
took shape in the immediate aftermath of the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
{an8}Russia is a regional power
{an8}that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors...
not out of strength, but out of weakness.
[Hill] Obama referring to Putin and to Russia of being a regional power,
and Russia being very weak,
Putin takes all of this onboard.
{an8}In a way, it kind of incites him.
{an8}It, you know, revs him up.
He feels that he's not just being disrespected personally,
but Russia has been.
And he wants to teach President Obama in particular,
but also then Hillary Clinton, his Secretary of State
and the United States writ large,
he wants to give everyone... a lesson.
{an8}[crowd cheering]
{an8}[Glasser] Putin had a particular animus toward Hillary Clinton
that went back even before then when she was a US Secretary of State.
He said that somehow she had orchestrated
huge protests in the streets all across Russian cities.
So, even before Donald Trump got into the race,
he had this rage toward the United States.
And then here comes this Republican candidate,
who actually is a years-long open admirer of Vladimir Putin.
[Trump] If he says great things about me, I'll say great things about him.
I've already said he is really very much of a leader.
You can say, "Isn't that a terrible thing?"
The man has very strong control over a country.
It's a very different system, and I don't happen to like the system,
but certainly in that system,
he's been a leader far more than our president.
We have a divided country...
{an8}Through Facebook groups,
{an8}through Twitter and other popular modes of expression of the modern era,
Putin, his intelligence service and their willing minions, the trolls,
{an8}put out literally tens of millions of falsehoods.
{an8}And engaged roughly a third of the American citizenry.
[Bailey] The technological shift to the world getting its information online
{an8}has made a huge difference in the ability of disinformation to have an impact
{an8}on people's lives and on the way they think about their governments
and government policies.
Information not only spreads more rapidly,
it spreads more credibly.
It often is forwarded to you from a friend or a family member.
[reporter] Washington says there's mounting evidence
that Russia is supplying Wikileaks
with hacked emails from the Clinton campaign.
[Clinton] We have never, in the history of our country,
been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power,
is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election.
{an8}[Glasser] The goal isn't always even to get the subjects
{an8}of this kind of propaganda to believe the misinformation,
{an8}but just to question the integrity of their own political system.
Why do I have to get involved with Putin?
Nothing to do with Putin. I've never spoken to him.
I don't know anything about him other than he will respect me.
Russia, if you're listening,
I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.
[in Russian] Does it even matter
who hacked this data from Mrs. Clinton's election campaign office?
Is that important?
The important thing is the content, uh, that was presented to the public.
[Hill, in English] In 2016,
the kind of political influence operation that the Russians had launched
wasn't that different from what they'd done during the Cold War,
but they'd succeeded beyond their wildest dreams because of social media,
and because of our own political polarization,
and they were pitting Americans against each other.
You wanna talk about that? Get the fuck back! Get the fuck back!
[clamoring]
[applause]
[reporter] Donald Trump wins the presidency.
The business tycoon, a TV personality,
capping his improbable political journey
with an astounding upset victory.
Donald J. Trump will become the 45th president...
[Hill] There was no evidence
that the Russians had actually affected the outcome of the election
in terms of affecting votes,
but they'd certainly affected domestic politics and public opinion.
People had lost faith in the sanctity and security of our elections
as a result of what the Russians had done.
[Applebaum] They would prefer that the West disintegrate by itself
so that they don't have to fight it militarily.
It's all because they continue to see the West and Western democracy
as their most important ideological enemy.
Putin doesn't hide his views.
He said multiple times that liberal democracy is over,
that he intends to challenge it, that he intends to undermine it.
{an8}Ukraine has become a kind of hinge.
{an8}Ukraine is the country where the contest between Western liberal democracy
{an8}and Russian-style autocracy are coming to a real military clash.
[cheering]
[Sorokin] In 2019, the Ukrainians elected President Zelenskyy.
{an8}He was this new guy in town who was basically using Instagram,
{an8}Telegram, and so on to speak, uh, to the audience.
{an8}[in Ukrainian] I swung at our elites and the President of Ukraine.
{an8}After that, I was declared a clown.
{an8}I am a clown. I am very proud, but I am sure that I am not the only one.
{an8}[Graff, in English] He was a TV actor. You know, he was a comedian.
[in Ukrainian] The president's office receives congratulations around the world.
This is some kind of, you know, weird joke.
I feel like it's a practical joke.
{an8}[applause]
{an8}Good evening, friends.
{an8}[Taylor, in English] President Zelenskyy had campaigned on a platform
of ending the war with Russia
that had been going on for five years then, from 2014 to 2019.
Zelenskyy thought that he could sit down with President Putin
and just work things out.
{an8}[in Ukrainian] We have tried everything so that we could, through dialogue,
{an8}without casualties, end the occupation which started in 2014,
liberate the occupied territories, and stop them from invading.
But they had already made their decision.
{an8}[somber music playing]
{an8}[Taylor, in English] In the spring of 2021,
the US begins to be concerned about military movements by Russia
along the Ukrainian border.
[news anchor] After months of simmering conflict,
thousands of Russian troops have massed on the border of Ukraine.
{an8}It is the largest buildup of troops since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
[Graff] The US military, by the end of 2021,
realizes that Vladimir Putin really does plan to invade Ukraine.
[tense music playing]
{an8}The Biden Administration takes this really novel approach
of downgrading and declassifying intelligence
and putting it out there almost in real time,
something the US has never done before.
The US pretty clearly knew more about the Russian invasion plans
than even many Russian commanders did.
{an8}We made huge efforts to prevent President Putin
{an8}from implementing his plans of invading Ukraine.
[reporter] The Russia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization Council
ended the meeting in Brussels that lasted for four hours.
[Stoltenberg] We had a very serious and direct exchange
on the situation in and around Ukraine
and implications for European security.
[interviewer] What were Russia's demands at that point?
They wanted NATO to make it absolutely clear
that no new countries could be members of, uh, NATO,
meaning of course that Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO,
but neither could Finland or Sweden.
{an8}They wanted NATO to withdraw its troops,
{an8}forces from all NATO allies that have joined after 1997.
We didn't agree with Russian demands.
{an8}[suspenseful music playing]
{an8}[Nauseda] We visited Ukraine on February 23rd
{an8}together with Polish president Andrzej Duda.
{an8}Until the last minute, we believed that maybe somehow,
{an8}that peace will be preserved.
But it didn't happen.
[suspenseful music rising]
[Zelenskyy, in Ukrainian] One piece of information was clear by now. In brief...
they would come.
[missile launching]
[explosion]
[baby crying]
[explosion]
[somber music playing]
[reporter] What seemed unthinkable in the 21st century is now underway.
A democratic country has been invaded by its nuclear-armed neighbor
on multiple fronts.
[distant explosions]
[Rudenko] February 24th,
in the very early hours, I start hearing explosions in the sky.
{an8}I've never, of course, before heard the sound of incoming missiles,
{an8}and that was really, uh, scary and strange.
{an8}And for all I knew, that was it. Like, I was gonna be killed.
[air raid alert blaring]
[Rudenko] And then, the air raid alerts start.
It was obvious immediately that Kyiv was target number one.
[Zelenskyy, in Ukrainian] I am president, but a part of me is also a father.
And that's why on that night, or rather in the small hours,
I asked my wife to tell the children
very quickly, it was the war.
She had to get them up, get things ready.
I had a minute or two-minute talk with her.
I told her to tell them the truth of what's happening,
that they would have to get ready fast.
{an8}Because of the risks, we were in a state residence.
{an8}[reporter 1, in English] Columns of Russian tanks and armored vehicles
{an8}reported to be pouring across the Ukrainian border tonight.
Swarms of helicopters flying in low over the countryside,
creating panic and terror for the people living there.
Europe hasn't seen an invasion of this size since World War II.
US military sources say they believe the Russians are driving on Kyiv
to surround and "decapitate" the government there.
[reporter 2] President Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president,
had been strongly advised by the White House
to leave Kyiv for his own safety.
[Graff] There was real concern in the US government
and Western intelligence services
{an8}that the Russians would try to come after and assassinate Zelenskyy.
{an8}[in Ukrainian] We already had official documentation
{an8}of a threat on the president's life.
[Zelenskyy] I happened to be the president at that moment,
and I would simply have to fulfill my duties.
This was not the first time in history
that we were at risk of losing our statehood.
And I understood that this was it. The moment has come.
This was the war for independence, the war for Ukraine.
[Graff, in English] Instead of fleeing or evacuating,
he surprised everyone, probably including the Russians,
by becoming this incredible inspiration to rally his country.
{an8}[in Ukrainian] Good evening, everyone. The leader of the party is here.
{an8}The head of the presidential cabinet is here.
{an8}Prime Minister Shmyhal is here.
Chief Advisor Podolyak is here.
The president is here.
We are all here.
Our soldiers are here.
The citizens are here, and we are here.
We are defending the independence of our state.
We will not stop.
[man] Glory to Ukraine!
[all] Glory to the heroes!
- [man] Glory to the nation! - [all] Death to the enemies!
We all came together. Our people came together.
We started fighting back.
[ominous music playing]
[man shouting excitedly]
[reporter, in English] The first two days have not gone as well
as the Russians expected.
Northwest of Kyiv, this bridge reportedly destroyed
to slow Russia's advance from the north.
[in Ukrainian] They dreamed of taking Kyiv in three days.
{an8}But their plans were thwarted, because we were ready for them.
[somber music playing]
[reporter, in English] This was supposed to be just another town
on the way to the capital, Kyiv.
Instead, their armored columns were incinerated from the sky.
[blast]
[Graff] The biggest surprise was just how poorly the Russian military fought.
[reporter] Supply lines are cut off, equipment is breaking down,
and soldiers are reportedly going hungry.
Some soldiers have resorted to looting from grocery stores.
[Graff] They were running out of supplies.
You saw Russian forces basically abandoning tanks when they ran out of gas.
[man, in Russian] Are you guys broken down?
[soldier] Out of fuel.
[Graff, in English] Russia thought it would capture most of Ukraine intact.
It became clear that that was not going to happen,
and they began to shift their tactics.
You saw this incredible brutality come out.
[loud blast]
[explosion]
[reporter 1] New Russian attacks on civilians tonight,
just one day after those missiles struck a central city,
killing at least 23 people, including three children.
[reporter 2] The town of Borodyanka
has been hollowed out by Russian missiles and artillery.
[somber music rising]
[in Ukrainian] There have been dozens of such cases in peaceful cities.
Entire cities were erased.
We know of thousands of people killed and tortured
with severed limbs, raped women, murdered children.
This is more than just...
This is definitely genocide.
What is the root of all this barbarity?
He feels no pity towards people
or to anything living.
Because he views all this as whether it is of political advantage for him or not.
[in English] Yeah, this is the place.
[interviewer] What happened here?
This place was where they executed, you know, local men.
Actual or potential resistance fighters.
Yeah.
[plaintive music playing]
[reporter] Pictures released by the Ukrainian military
show what appears to be a torture chamber
in another basement where people were handcuffed and shot
while on their knees.
[plaintive music continues]
It's like it's something that...
[sighs]...Nazi death squads would do in the movies.
But it's happening to our time, to here.
To our place.
It's... That was the year 2022, you know.
We were supposed to be flying to Mars,
not seeing them executing people Nazi-style.
This is how, you know, the world works.
The brutal world works.
Yeah.
[plaintive music continues]
[indistinct]
- [in Ukrainian] It will be all right. - [woman gasps]
It will be all right.
God has already saved you. You're here.
Your husband and your child will come now.
They were shooting...
[sobbing]
I'm very scared.
I've never been so scared in my life.
- You'll be treated. God will help you. - [distant explosion]
Don't be afraid.
That's our artillery.
They defend us. It's not an attack.
- Don't be afraid. - [sobbing] They bombed my house.
They fired... killed my cat.
They almost killed my daughter.
[priest] May God protect you. It will be fine. Don't be afraid.
I will pray for you.
[Rudenko, in English] The Ukrainian national anthem
famously starts with the words
that can be translated as, "Ukraine is not dead yet."
You can't think of a better anthem to fit the moment.
We are not dead yet, and we will keep fighting.
[music fades]
[Glasser] Putin and his lieutenants explicitly, since the invasion of Ukraine,
have repeatedly threatened nuclear weapons use.
[Putin, in Russian] Anyone who tries to stand in our way,
or threatens our country or our people, should know
that Russia will respond immediately,
and the consequences will be such,
as you have never seen in your entire history.
[tense music playing]
[Stoltenberg, in English] This is a concern we have to take serious.
President Putin's nuclear rhetoric is reckless.
It's dangerous.
{an8}A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,
{an8}and this is a message that we have conveyed clearly to Russia.
President Putin made a big strategic mistake
when he invaded Ukraine.
He totally underestimated the strength,
the courage, the determination of the Ukrainian people,
the Ukrainian armed forces,
and also the Ukrainian political leadership.
And he underestimated the strength of NATO and NATO allies.
The unity, our commitment to support Ukraine.
{an8}[reporter 1] We just learned the US and G7 allies
{an8}agreed to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
{an8}Germany has finally agreed to allow Leopard 2 tanks to be sent to Ukraine.
{an8}Today, the department is announcing approximately $400 million
{an8}in additional security assistance for Ukraine.
[Salm] Estonia has been one of the largest supporters of Ukraine.
Last week, we achieved 1% of lethal aid,
{an8}that amounts for 400 million US dollars in Estonian terms.
[Kallas] We are a small country.
{an8}We can only give military aid as much as we can give.
[man] Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia.
[Kallas] But when Ukrainians decided that they're gonna defend their country,
we have to do everything, uh, for them to let them defend their home.
We saw the history repeating itself.
The same playbook that we saw during our occupation.
{an8}The same sufferings that our people went through,
{an8}our grandmothers, our grandfathers.
We saw the same happening in Ukraine.
[Stoltenberg] President Putin invaded Ukraine because he wanted less NATO.
He's getting more NATO.
[reporter] NATO is increasing its rapid response force
more than sevenfold,
and bolstering troop numbers in the Baltics.
[Stoltenberg] He's also getting more NATO members.
{an8}The situation in Ukraine reminds us of the darkest days of European history.
{an8}Yesterday, Sweden and Finland submitted our formal requests to join NATO.
{an8}[Plokhy] Ukrainians need a lot of support.
They're fighting for the future of Europe and for the future of the world,
{an8}because at stake are the foundations of democracy, of freedom.
Ukrainians today are prepared to die for those values.
[Nauseda] I think the Cold War is not over.
There are still the mentality of some authoritarian leaders
{an8}that they can bring the happiness to neighboring countries
{an8}by occupying them
and stealing the natural right,
sovereign right of every country to decide what to do.
[indistinct announcement over PA]
{an8}Right now, all sides are so locked in,
I don't think there is going to be a good outcome for anybody.
[ominous music playing]
[Matlock] And looking at this in very black-and-white simple terms,
we forget, really, some of the essential things.
We like to say we want a rules-based, uh, international society.
And yes, we should have one.
But we're not going to get one if the United States sets examples
in violating these rules, which we have done.
Of course, it was a huge error for Putin to invade Ukraine to begin with.
But I think we shouldn't forget we gave him a precedent.
After all, George W. Bush invaded Iraq.
[loud blast]
{an8}Which was not a neighboring country which possibly threatened us.
[explosion]
And we did it lying about having weapons there.
What Putin has done is a war crime.
But I think we have to recognize
that our country has not been free of war crimes.
[explosions]
And we've not yet had a president who would correctly, I think,
admit it and deal with it.
[Gates] Isolationism is not an option for the United States.
{an8}It never was, and it certainly isn't today with our economy as integrated
into the rest of the world as it is.
The United States, I think,
{an8}has to continue to exercise global leadership,
but we don't have to be the world's policemen.
Because of the overuse of the military since the end of the Cold War,
most Americans conflate global leadership
with being willing to send our sons and daughters
everywhere in the world to solve other people's problems
or to impose democracy.
[compelling music playing]
[applause]
[Weiner] The Cold War was the crucible that shaped America.
{an8}It shaped the American military,
which spent trillions of dollars on weapons to fight World War III
against the Soviets.
It shaped American diplomacy.
It shaped American intelligence.
{an8}It shaped American popular culture.
What a country!
♪ I've been looking for freedom... ♪
[Weiner] And it shaped the collective consciousness of the American people.
And its effects will linger as long as there is a person
who remembers what happened
and why.
{an8}[emotional music soars]
{an8}[Lyne] The Cold War inevitably left a very deep legacy of suspicion
{an8}and indeed hostility in the generations that fought it.
[Remnick] Russia is a diminished place.
{an8}And now it's gonna become more and more isolated,
{an8}poorer, more resentful, more xenophobic.
It's not re-establishing Russian greatness.
It's an immense humiliation.
[Ostrovsky] Putin set out to do something which never can succeed.
You cannot restore the past. You cannot restore the empire.
The question is, how many lives he takes,
{an8}and his system takes with it.
[Sarotte] Empires don't just collapse in a day.
Empires take a while to collapse.
It's messy, there's a lot of violence around where the borders are going to end.
So I think what we're seeing is still that story playing out.
{an8}But what we are now going to have again is,
{an8}we are going to have this nuclear standoff between Moscow and Washington,
which basically threatens civilization as we know it.
How do we stand up to what Putin is doing and defend our values,
despite the risk of losing it all through nuclear catastrophe?
That is an immense challenge.
Fortunately, we have the history of the Cold War to help us, to guide us.
Because we're gonna need what we learned during the Cold War again.
So we need to find a way,
even in full consciousness of the risk of nuclear escalation,
to stand up for our values,
stand up for what is right in the face of evil.
[Ischinger] One of the long-term historic lessons for me
is that man aspires to personal freedom
{an8}and to a life that allows dreams.
[compelling music playing]
{an8}[Schefke, in German] The collapse of the wall.
{an8}We did not think about it on the 9th of October, but we dreamt of it.
{an8}And dreaming is always good.
{an8}Dreaming of unreachable goals. I still do it today.
[Sajonz] I did not know what would happen to me, and I was afraid.
{an8}But then I also felt safe together with all the other people.
{an8}[Kauspedas, in Lithuanian] The main thing we should understand
is that the secret to freedom is courage.
{an8}We have to be courageous.
{an8}And this is what they fear most.
They want to threaten everyone and implement their interests.
And we have to be unafraid of them,
and we have to fight back.
{an8}[in English] In '83, the deployment of nuclear missiles
{an8}on both sides was a very dangerous situation.
[dramatic music playing]
[Teltschik] Nevertheless, we met to talk to one another,
and we overcame the situation.
[Graff] The world, in many ways,
faces a much more fraught nuclear landscape today
{an8}than it has at any time since the 1980s.
[Collina] The United States spent about $10 trillion
on its nuclear forces
since nuclear weapons were developed in 1945.
The United States is planning to spend another trillion over the next 30 years
to modernize and replace the existing arsenal that it has today,
but without ever taking the time to say,
{an8}"Let's actually think about what part of this do we need."
[dramatic music rising]
{an8}Is a nuclear war low probability? Sure, but...
{an8}If we keep the weapons around, we're gonna have one.
[Nichols] When I was younger and the Cold War was still in full swing,
{an8}I accepted the orthodoxy that we needed a strong nuclear deterrent
{an8}to keep the peace with the Soviet Union.
But once the Cold War was over,
I came to the conclusion that we have to get rid of them,
and we really have to forswear ever using them.
[loud blast]
[Wolfe] We've lost a sense of the horror
{an8}of thermonuclear weapons, and atomic weapons,
{an8}of the sense of the scale of their destruction.
[dramatic music continues]
[music fades]
[woman, in Japanese] Silent prayer.
{an8}[bell echoing]
{an8}[in English] I went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki
{an8}to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the detonations in those two cities.
{an8}[poignant music playing]
[woman, in Japanese] The names of 4,978 people
have been added to the register of atomic bomb victims.
Together, with those who have passed prior to this year,
the total number of victims is 333,907 people.
[Gottemoeller, in English] The Japanese commemorate them every single year
with the remaining survivors, who are now very few, present.
[woman] May I have your attention, please?
We will now hold the ceremony...
[Gottemoeller] For me, it was an emotional experience.
It's a very solemn occasion.
There are still so many questions.
Why, why, why was this done?
[in Japanese] The tragedy of that day, 77 years ago,
must never be repeated.
Now is the time when the threat of nuclear weapons,
and even the use of nuclear weapons, has become a real problem,
when the momentum for a world without nuclear weapons is said to be receding,
and it is precisely at this time that I, with the power of Hiroshima,
appeal loudly to the people of the world,
that the horrors of the use of nuclear weapons must not be repeated.
[Iida] Ridding ourselves of nuclear weapons
{an8}is an absolute necessity for the world
to achieve everlasting peace.
I want to ask, how did we let things get this bad?
How do we find ourselves in such a bind?
Who allowed this to happen?
[transporting music playing]
If you use them, or if a nuclear war breaks out,
it could lead to the extinction of the human race, right?
You must have someone that you love at least a little bit?
How would you feel if those people had to face a nuclear weapon?
[Kakita, in English] This bomb go off, you just don't destroy and kill people,
you destroy the city and culture.
It's something that should have never happened,
and I hope to God that it never happens again.
[music fades]
[closing theme music playing]