WEBVTT - How did Putin come to power? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.440 Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, so you, of course 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:05.960 remember the weird publicity stunt Vladimir Putin, you know, riding 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.280 the horseback while shirtless and Siberia, Right, Yeah, I mean 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:11.400 it's kind of hard to forget. Well, you know, we've 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:13.600 been talking about doing this episode on Putin for a 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.000 while now, and I was wondering, like, has this guy 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.799 always been one to put on a show? And it 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:20.960 turns out, just a few decades ago, he was actually 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.040 known as somebody who worked quietly behind the scenes. If 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.320 you go back to the early nineties, Putin was working 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.600 for the first Democratic mayor of St. Petersburg and a 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.920 totally soap check, and when former colleagues were interviewed about 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.160 working with Putin, they reportedly described him as the man 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.240 to see if things needed to get done, but otherwise 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.080 it's somebody who kept a pretty low profile. That's kind 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.240 of interesting. Yeah, And when soap Check failed to get reelected, 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.000 the new mayor reportedly tried to keep Putin on board, 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.280 but Putin declined the job, saying it's better to be 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.160 hanged for loyalty than rewarded for betrayal. I mean, I 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.720 can definitely imagine that being a line that he'd use, 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.320 I mean, especially these days as someone in our definitely, 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.400 But this is what really got us wondering. I mean, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.200 how did Putin go from being this strong but low 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.039 profile force to being this man we've seen in power 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.679 for a couple of decades now in Russia. So that's 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:35.840 what we're talking about today. Let's dive in heither podcast listeners, 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.040 Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.440 always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.360 and on the other side of the soundproof glass wearing 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.040 one of his ridiculous T shirts. I don't know how 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.880 he gets these things, because he have them made, but 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.400 I feel like I need to walk the audience through 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:53.440 this one. This this it's just okay, here's what it is. 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:57.040 It's got a drawing of Vladimir Putin shirtless on horseback 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.880 of horse standing on the roof of the Ritz, Carlton 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.840 and Moscow and the caption what is it? The caption 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.840 just says, Putin on the Ritz. It's such a long 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:10.000 way to go for such a dumb joke, but that's 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.760 why we love it. I mean, that dedication from Tristan 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:14.880 to make these things. It's a pretty great and and 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.399 and honestly, I'll take all the levity we can get 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.560 because today's show deals entirely with Vladimir Putin and Chance Sorr. 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:23.720 You've heard his name a lot lately, perhaps a bit 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.680 more than you'd care to. And the Russian president has 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.320 been incredibly active on the world stage during the past 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.799 few years, and much of that activity has been met 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:36.000 with a combination of suspicion and outrage by the international community, 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.000 you know, from alleged murders carried out in his command 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.080 to you know, the illegal annexation of Crimea, to the 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.720 interference in our country's own election. There's no question that 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.240 Putin has been a very busy guy in the past 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.560 few years. But beneath his icy demeanor and over the 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.520 top displaze of machismo, who is Putin really? How did 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:57.560 he rise to power in the first place, and what 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.239 does he actually want? And so those are the kinds 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.440 of questions we're gonna be tackling today, right And to me, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.919 like one of the most crazy aspects of this whole 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.760 Putent story is just how long he's been in power. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:10.640 I Mean, I don't know if you realize this, but 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.880 he's been in powerful almost twenty years now. He first 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.280 became the Prime Minister of Russia in nineteen ninety nine, 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.480 and in the nineteen years since he's alternated between that 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.680 role and the presidency multiple times. It is crazy, I 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.040 mean nineteen nine nine. If you think about that, Bill 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.919 Clinton was our president in nineteen so can you imagine 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.080 if he had stayed in office all those years exactly? 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.480 And you know, two decades of continuous rule is pretty 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.240 unheard of in democracies, though. Russia's claim at a democracy 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.640 has always been if you had best, especially with all 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.360 the stories of corruption. Yeah, and that's true. But before 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.200 we get to ahead of ourselves, when why don't we 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.400 go back to the beginning, to a time when Russia 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.480 made no pretense about being a democracy. So we're going 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.400 back to nineteen fifty two when Putin was born. Now, 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.400 the country at that point was obviously still known as 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.160 the Soviet Union, and there was no waffling about what 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:01.040 it was, which was a one party socialist state. And 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.880 Putin grew up under harsh realities of this system. And 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:06.400 you know, his family shared a communal style apartment in 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.840 Lennon Grad with I think two other families, and he 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.000 was the only child of working class parents. His mother 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.480 was an auto worker and his father was a decorated 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.000 veteran and also a factory worker, I believe. I mean, 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.480 it's so weird to think about baby Putin and even 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.480 like niche Putin just being like so sullen, but so 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.080 weird to say baby Putin. But what was he even 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.080 like as a child. You know, well, from everything I've read, 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.160 he was just a typical kid from a pretty modest background. 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.719 Like he was an average student in terms of grades 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.440 and and maybe even somewhat of a troublemaker in class. 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:42.960 Their stories you read about him always throwing a racers 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.599 at his classmates and blowing off his math homework. And 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.720 then as a teenager, just a typical teenager you know 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.240 that was throwing a racers at classmates, I guess, but 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.279 the teenagers were doing at that point. But you know, 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:57.840 Putin noticed while he was a teenager that some of 0:04:57.880 --> 0:04:59.880 the other boys his age were bigger than he was, 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.160 and so he started learning judo and sambo, which is 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.000 a Soviet combat technique. And this was all in order 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:08.160 to be able to defend himself. Yeah, I think we've 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.120 all heard about his love of judo, but it's really 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.200 funny that he co authored a couple of books on 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.520 the sport and even released like a silly instructional video. 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.720 It was called Let's Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin. It 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.760 came out and that eight I thought about ordering a 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.120 copy of it just for for this episode, but then 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.000 I thought, no, that's that's probably for the best that 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.440 we not, But that anyway, I'm sure it was every 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.080 kid's dream to be able to learn judo from Vladimir Putin. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:37.279 So obviously his childhood behavior and his manly exploits hinted 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.520 at the things to come. But what about his political aspirations? 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.800 Was Putin like interested in government as a kid? Well 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:46.960 kind of, yeah. I mean he developed a passion for 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.320 Spye novels and TV shows when he was still pretty young, 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:52.920 and so much so that he even visited the KGB 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.400 headquarters while he was still in school. And he did 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.719 this just to find out how he could join the agency. 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.680 And so because of their advice, Puttin a ended Leningrad 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.760 State University, started studying law there, and then once he graduated, 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.760 he immediately started working in foreign intelligence for the KGB. Yeah, 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:10.919 and as most of our audience knows, the KGB was 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.280 a national security and intelligence agency. You know, most people 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.480 think of it like the Soviet equivalent to the FBI 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.680 or CIA, but really it's more like a combination that 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.800 two plus it's got like a military and police component 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.799 as well for good measure exactly. Well, as a young recruit, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.960 Putin had very little influence on policy and mostly was 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.440 working as a spy recruiter instead at that point. Still, 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.240 he gradually worked his way up to be a mid 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.480 level agent during his sixteen years or so with the KGB, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.880 and he was close to the end of his time 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.479 there that Putin experienced what many now considered to be 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.960 a really defining moment in his life. So what happened then, Well, 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.839 it was nine and Putin was stationed at a KGB 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.960 office in Dresden, East Germany, and the Cold War was 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.120 coming to a close, and anti Communist protesters had started 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.640 gathering in mass to call for the dismantling of Berlin Wall. Well, 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.960 one mob in particular had formed outside the KGB offices 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:07.599 and they were threatening to storm the building and boot 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.520 out the Communists who were holed up inside, and so 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.960 Putin wanted to take action and fight back the mob, 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.240 but actually he was told that the KGB could do 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.720 nothing until they had received orders from Moscow. So in 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.280 the meantime, Putin and the others started burning these piles 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.000 after piles of sensitive documents, just in case the protesters 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.440 managed to get inside the building. But you know, as 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:31.000 they waited for word from Moscow, that word actually never came. 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.880 That's crazy. So I'm sure Putin didn't appreciate Moscow just 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.800 hang him out to dry like that. Definitely, I mean 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.400 not at all. And he later reflected on this, saying, 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.520 the business of Moscow is silent. I got the feeling 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.760 that the country no longer existed, that it had disappeared. 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.360 It was clear that the union was ailing, and that 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.920 it had a terminal disease without a cure, a paralysis 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.920 of power, which you know, it must have been a 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.720 hard pill for Puttin to swallow. I know that he 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.440 grew up on the steady diet of Soviet propaganda and 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.120 believing how strong and resilient the state was, and and 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.280 now he gets this firsthand glimpse behind iron curtain and 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.600 sees what a farce at all is. Well, that's exactly right. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.120 And it wasn't long after the panic in Dressden that 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.640 the Soviet Union collapsed completely, and so the country Putin 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.480 had so proudly grown up in and and had served 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.040 for all this time it became a worldwide symbol of 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.320 what not to do. A journalist named Ben Judah has 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:28.360 this great book on Russia and Putin and it's called 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.840 Fragile Empire, and then he describes the impact of this 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.400 Moscow silence incidents this way. He says, for Putin and 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.119 his generation, those who did not come from intellectual families, 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.520 who believed what they were told about the USS are 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:46.160 superpower success and didn't question propaganda or what they did 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:51.200 not have, that moment was a defining scar. Yeah, and 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:53.920 it certainly explains why Putin has been so hell bent 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.120 to restore Russia's superpower status and you know, to make 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.720 himself seem like such a strong man on the world stage. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.559 It's almost like he wants to take this rose in 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:04.439 interview of the country that he has a child and 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.160 turn it into reality again. But here's the thing I 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.560 don't get is how does like a middle aged KGB 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.400 agent turn into i don't know, like a three year 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.520 potentially four term president. Well, like with most great gigs 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:19.960 like this, it's all about who you know, and in 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.320 Putin's case, he had made, you know, quite a few 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.040 political connections during his time as an intelligence agent, and 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.280 one in particular was anatotally soap chack that we mentioned earlier, 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.160 and he'd been one of Putin's law professors at university 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.360 and had gone on to become the mayor of Leningrad, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.040 which of course is what we call St. Petersburg today. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.880 So when Putin resigned from the KGB in nine, so 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.160 Check took him under his wing and he helped him 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.400 navigate the political world. And this was during the collapse 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.120 of the Soviet Union. He even gave Putin a job 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:54.400 as his international affairs advisor. With a city mayor has 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.240 his own international affairs advisor. Well, it sounds a little 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.840 strange to us, but but major these in Russia, like 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.160 you know St. Petersburg or Moscow, they really operate more 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.960 like we would think of U. S. States operating here, 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.160 and so they've got a great deal of independence and 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:13.640 power within their own right. Really. Okay, So, so Putin's 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:15.839 working for the mayor while his country is being restructured 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.680 all around him. That still seems like a long way 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.640 offering the presidency. Well, and it was. But you know, 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.280 Putin worked his way from one civic office to the 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.959 next until nine and this is when his Pala soap Check, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.560 had been voted out as mayor. And at that point 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.880 Putin was already on good terms with one of soap 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.000 Check's close friends and government and that was Boris Yeltson, 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.079 who we all remember as the first President of Russia. 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.480 So Putin moved to Moscow in n he started working 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.400 for a government agency called the Presidential Property Management Department. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.360 Now this was an agency task with moving all the 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.559 assets of the former Soviet Union to this newly formed 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.000 Russian Federation. You know, since there was no private ownership 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.200 whatsoever in the previous communist state, that meant that there 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.280 was a ton of property and all these natural resources 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.000 to be able to divvy up at that point. So 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.600 it was a huge task. But I mean it also 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.720 seems like this short fire recipe for corruption, right, Oh, definitely. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.760 I mean, the agency's officials could award oil, drilling rights, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.960 military equipment, all these other valuable assets to whoever offered 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.760 them the most in return, and in fact, most people 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.840 speculate that this is where Putin started building his vast 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.520 personal fortune, which I was blown away just in doing 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.920 our research this week about this, because it's thought to 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.320 be in the tens of billions of dollars. I mean, 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:33.960 I knew the guy was super rich, but tens of 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.760 billions of dollars is what they estimate. That's ridiculous. Now, 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.040 it seems we're only three years out from Putin's first 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.280 crack of the presidency. So tell us where he goes 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.600 from here? All right? So Putin reconnects with his roots 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.480 in the late nineties and joins the FSB and and 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.920 this is the replacement agency for the KGB, and so 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.319 he quickly works his way up the ladder and its 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.560 and President Yeltsin himself makes Putin the head of the FSB. 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.320 Then't less. In the year after that, Yeltson promotes Putin 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.280 again by appointing him as the Prime Minister of Russia. 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.320 Now that's second only in command to the president in 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.080 terms of rank there, but actually that's not even it. 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.400 On the very same day, in August of nineteen ninety nine, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.320 Yeltson also announced his hopes that Putin would be his 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.520 presidential successor. But rather than waiting to see if the 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.520 people of Russia would actually make that happen, Yeltson made 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.880 an unprecedented move. With just a few months left to 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.679 go in his second term, Yeltson stepped down as president. 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.080 This was on New Year's Eve of nineteen nine nine, 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.440 and he named Putin as the acting president in his stead, 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:38.160 and then Putin won his first official term in the 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.120 March two thousand election, which actually, by the way, this 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.560 was the first time in his political career that Putin 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.320 actually ran for office. That's crazy, and obviously it's this 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.720 rapid rise that doesn't feel that democratic. But do we 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.040 know why Yelson would take such extreme measures, Like did 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.800 you just have that much faith in Putin's leadership or 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.920 his abilities or something. Well, Yeltson was definitely impressed with 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.400 Putin's performance, but the general consensus is that pushing him 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.000 into this presidential position it was really more of a 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.199 way for Yeltson to protect himself. So at the time, 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.280 Russia was at war with these separatist forces in Chechnian 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.760 and they wanted their region to be independent rather than 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.880 just another part of Russia, and the war wasn't going 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.680 well for Russia by and yelts of the approval ratings 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.320 were suffering as a result of this, and so the 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.680 theory actually seems pretty credible, and especially when you consider 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.440 that one of Putin's first acts as president was to 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.680 grant yelts In immunity from all criminal or administrative investigation. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.160 That's ridiculous. And I mean it's funny because like people 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.200 always talk about Putin being an enemy of government transparency, 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.720 and this all seems pretty transparent to me. It seems 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.040 like a pretty obvious move. And you know, there are 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.680 plenty of other telling actions that Putin took during the 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.760 early years of his rule, but before we get into those, 0:13:54.840 --> 0:14:10.280 let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.240 Genius and we're talking about Vladimir Putin and his rise 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.560 to power, all right, Mango. So, so during Putin's first 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.400 term as president, there was one incident that really kicked 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.080 off this whole myth of Putin as it's kind of 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.080 this kind of like an unflappable man of action. And 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:27.600 it happened back in two thousand two, and this was 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.960 back when Russia was knee deep in a second war 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.240 with Czech new and a group of forty Zech and 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.560 militants rated this Moscow theater. Of course we all remember 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:37.880 this story, and and they managed to take more than 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:42.480 nine hundred civilians hostage. The militants demanded that Russian forces 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.880 be withdrawn from Czechnia in return for the hostages release, 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.960 but Putin actually refused to negotiate, and so the ensuing 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.680 standoff drag un for three days, at which point the 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:56.080 Russian special forces stormed the theater, and so by the 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.040 end of the ordeal, all forty of the militants were dead, 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.280 along with a hundred and twenty nine of those hostages 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.560 under twenty nine hostages. That's really horrible at but you're 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:10.240 saying this actually helped build Putin's reputation. Yes, surprisingly it did. 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.160 I mean people abroad thought Putin's handling of this situation 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.480 would actually cripple his domestic approval rating, but it actually 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.640 had the opposite effect. And just looking at the changes 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:21.960 in approval rating over a period of time here is 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.280 is pretty staggering. So you know, he had been looking 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.880 at an approval rating of like two percent during his 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.560 brief stint as Prime minister, but his presidential ratings actually 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.400 averaged in the low sixties before this Moscow hostage situation, 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.600 and then after his approval rating sword to something like 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.080 eighty three percent. I mean, it was crazy high. And 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.400 the vast majority of Russians had responded positively to Putin's 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.280 ruthless approach. So from then on he started, you know, 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.160 kind of like crafting this this public image as a strongman. 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:53.560 And you know, once I started looking into all these 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.720 supermanly photo ops, I was just struck by how ridiculous 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:58.760 an image it all adds up to, like when you 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.360 piece them together. I mean, you know, they're those famous 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.440 photos of him like flexing his muscles while arm wrestling 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.920 or posing shirtless on horseback, but they are all these 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.400 other excessively butch activities that he supposedly excels at too. 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.440 So in two thousand and ten, he went on an 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.920 expedition with a group of marine biologists and shot a 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.000 whale with a crossbow. You know, I mean, I guess 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.520 there was a scientific purpose for this. The scientists could 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.280 collect its skin samples for research, And in two thousand thirteen, 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:28.720 Putin dove two ft underwater to the bottom of the 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.040 Gulf of Finland just to check out a hundred forty 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.400 year old shipwreck. I mean when you piece all of 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.640 this together, it really is more like a caricature. Like 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:39.840 you know, Putin starts to sound like the old dos 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.600 sekis dude, the most interesting man in the world kind 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.080 of thing. I mean, you think about what you just said, 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.080 like he shoots whales with crossbows and goes on these 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.200 sunken shipwrecks and is a black belt judo master. I mean, 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.920 the list just goes on and on, I know, but 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.080 it is funny how often you can see the strings 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.280 on a lot of these pr stots and how manufactured 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.440 they clearly are. What do you mean by that? Like 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.760 a good example is this archaeological discovery that Putin supposedly 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.120 made while on a scuba diving trip in the Black Sea. 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.560 So this was in two thousand eleven, and there was 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.320 footage from the dive where Putin's holding these two pieces 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.119 of a Greek urn that's said to be from the 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.840 sixth century BC. And Putin looks at the camera and says, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.760 the boys and I found them, and it's in like 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:24.920 two ms of clear water, Like it's just like floating there, 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.800 you know, the way that price like relics tended to. Yeah, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:29.600 that's the way it works. I mean, and not only 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.800 is this guy super macho, but he's apparently also insanely 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.600 lucky too, I guess. Yeah. And so the idea of 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:37.840 stumbling across these ancient artifacts in a few of you 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.000 to water, you know, there's obviously no way. So after 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.960 three months of Russian blogs and independent media is saying 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.879 the same thing, Putin's chief spokesman finally admitted that the 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.679 whole thing was staged for the cameras, except you know, 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.200 he was still trying to play it off as intentional. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.040 Like just listen to the super defensive statement he made 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.959 in an interview. So this is his quote. Look, Putin 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.160 didn't find the jug that had lay in there for 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.840 many thousands of years. It's obvious. Of course they were 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.000 found in the course of an expedition several weeks or 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.160 days earlier. Of course they were left there or placed there. 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.119 It's completely normal. There's no reason to gloat about this 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.800 and everything else, like he says, Look, and of course 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.720 so many times in that statement. Yeah, I mean, don't 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.800 you just love it when government officials say it's your 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.160 fault for taking them at face value. I mean, suddenly, 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.600 like you're the idiot for thinking they actually meant what 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:26.800 they said. Yeah, I mean, and that isn't the only 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.160 time Putin has been caught in a lie. There's evidence 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.800 of him being photoshopped and like looking more cut as 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.399 a result of it. And uh, there's also during a 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.960 visit to Siberia in two thousand thirteen, he claimed to 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.320 have caught a forty six pound pike while fishing, which 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.480 would actually make it one of the world's largest. But 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.359 you know, the way to the fish was never substantiated, 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.920 and like all these eagle eyed Russian anglers who saw 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.680 the photos, they argued that Putin's cash probably the only 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.639 way about twenty pounds or so, so petty, Well, you know, 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.320 Putin's provado was definitely keeping with his authoritarian leanings. But 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.840 one interesting idea I found in my research is that 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.000 his obsession with his public image is he's actually partly 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.880 a way to associate himself with other leaders in Russian history. Huh, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:11.440 I mean, that's an interesting idea, like, you know, putting 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:13.480 him in line of this legacy. But but what do 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:17.120 you mean exactly, like, did Russian tsars cheat at fishing? Well? 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.600 And then not exactly. But back in two thousand and fourteen, 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.600 there was a big celebration in Russia for Putin's sixty 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.800 second birthday, and as part of the festivities there was 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.080 this art exposition in Moscow called the Twelve Labors of Putin, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.720 Like like Hercules, Like the Twelve Labors Hercules. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.840 that's exactly it. And so in Greek mythology, Hercules completes 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.840 these twelve difficult task and becomes Greece's greatest hero in 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.199 the process. But in the paintings, it's Putin facing this 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.000 three headed hydra with a sword and a shield in 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.040 his hands. And the painting is titled the Taming of 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.399 the Cretan Bowl, and it's just Putin in a toga 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.119 straddling this giant bowl. Yeah. So obviously this kind of 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.240 naked propaganda is right up Putin's alley. But I'm guessing 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.400 there's more to this imagery than just you know, a 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.320 PC Russian guy wrestling a bull. Yeah, there are a 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.720 few details in the painting that speak volumes about the situation. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.639 For for instance, the bull's forehead features the crest of Crimea, 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.080 which you probably remember was illegally annexed by Russian two 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.760 thousand and fourteen, and ribbons bearing the Russian colors or 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.360 round around the bull's horn and held his reins by Putin. 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.439 You know, now, historically the Crimean peninsula has caught the 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.199 attention of foreign rulers going back thousands and thousands of years, 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:32.800 and just looking at the list of conquers and includes 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.679