Behind the News: Civics Series

Vladimir Putin arrives in the Kremlin as a vulnerable and unknown president, whom the Russian oligarchs hope to control. He asserts his hold on power and ultimately surrounds himself with his KGB peers.

An Italian family face being torn apart, an Irish couple fight for their son, and a man in detention makes his last desperate bid to prevent his deportation to a country he barely knows.

This film tracks how Putin escapes poverty by joining the KGB, his reinvention as a political fixer in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and how he gets into position to take over from President Yeltsin.