Putin's Crisis

♪ ♪ >> The Wagner leader hasn’t been seen in public since the end of the mutiny he lead in Russia... >> Putin met with Prigozhin five days after the armed mutiny... >> Still not clear what ultimate fate await him or his mercenaries... >> He was a loyalist who was willing to do the dirty jobs that Vladimir Putin needed.

>> NARRATOR: A Russian crisis... >> Vladimir Putin vowing to crush the rebellion... >> NARRATOR: Years in the making... >> He wants to be a great historical figure for Russia, Putin the Great is what he wants to be.

>> NARRATOR: A fateful decision... >> Biggest war in Europe since World War II... >> NARRATOR: And a betrayal... >> Prigozhin baldly addressed some of these things that Putin wouldn’t talk about, which is the losses, the pain, the difficulty of the war.

>> (speaking Russian:) >> Is Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on power in peril?

>> NARRATOR: Now on FRONTLINE - “Putin’s Crisis.” >> Putin comes out weak.

He’s been shown not to be fully in charge.

♪ ♪ >> It's Friday night in the West, and suddenly there are these reports of an armed uprising.

>> Now to that major development in the war in Ukraine.

Trouble brewing within the Russian rank.

>> An unprecedented armed rebellion inside Russia.

>> It is shocking to see tanks in the streets in Russia.

We haven't seen anything like that since 1991 and 1993.

>> Very dramatic, indeed, historic development.

>> The Wagner chief has said his 25,000-strong force is ready to die.

>> It's a real shock to the system to see these images and to understand what's behind them.

>> NARRATOR: Leading the mutiny: Yevgeny Prigozhin, a mercenary renowned for his brutality.

And until that day, Vladimir Putin's close ally.

>> The best way to understand what's happening now in Russia is a mafia power struggle.

>> As more reports come in, more video comes in, you're seeing that there are actually, you know, troops moving into Rostov and that they're actually taking the headquarters.

>> (speaking Russian): >> The mercenary force, this Wagner force, was probably the most capable Russian force that has been fighting in Ukraine until recently.

They are battle-hardened, and they are, frankly, motivated by their leader, who was there with them in the field.

>> There was video of Prigozhin and senior generals sitting around talking together.

They didn't have to fight their way into the headquarters.

National Guard troops didn't roll out to confront them when they took the military headquarters.

>> NARRATOR: The armed uprising then turned directly towards Putin.

The troops headed to Moscow, to his seat of power.

>> There was no one defending Putin.

There was no one expressing outrage that there was a mutiny going on, much less trying to stop the mutiny.

>> NARRATOR: In those first hours of crisis, Putin was nowhere to be seen.

>> A military force is moving in on Moscow, and there's no sign that the president is taking any action.

And in fact, it sounds like he was trying to get out of Moscow.

He was losing his nerve.

And that's very unusual for Vladimir Putin.

>> NARRATOR: When the Russian leader finally went before the cameras, he was shaken.

>> (speaking Russian): >> Putin's demeanor was anger, not in control.

He was clearly panicked.

>> (speaking Russian): >> It was a breathtaking moment.

This was the first time in more than 20 years of Vladimir Putin's rule in which there was a serious challenge to the monopoly of power of the state, which was the entire rationale for Putin's presidency and his leadership throughout these last two decades.

>> NARRATOR: Vladimir Putin, the self-styled Russian strongman, now appeared vulnerable.

>> Even a failed coup can be dangerous.

It reveals that the emperor has no clothes, right?

It reveals that it is conceivable to stand against him, and if you're Putin, you're looking around that room and you're saying, "Which of these people has a knife in his belt?

"Which of these people might be thinking about moving on me next?"

It had to have worried him that he didn't necessarily know where the threats could come from.

>> Putin is now at his weakest.

This is a dent to his authority.

>> NARRATOR: For two decades, he warded off threats to his power... >> Vladimir Putin has lost authority and legitimacy within Russia.

>> NARRATOR: ...through conquest and autocratic rule... >> The Putin of ten years ago would never have allowed this to play out the way it did.

>> There are cracks in the armor behind Vladimir Putin.

>> NARRATOR: ...until he went too far... >> Calling the war what it is: 18 months of failure on the part of Vladimir Putin.

>> NARRATOR: ...creating a crisis for himself, Russia, and the world.

>> It does highlight now how isolated Putin has become.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Vladimir Putin had long been on guard for threats, going back to his training as a KGB officer in the waning days of the former Soviet Union.

>> The KGB was a monopoly that produced violence.

It was a monopoly that was responsible for political surveillance... ...on everyday basis of Soviet citizens.

Nothing could go without the KGB.

>> NARRATOR: He was stationed in Dresden, East Germany, as Soviet power was collapsing.

>> Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

>> This protest movement may now be reaching a critical moment.

>> ...a year remembered for communism's loss of influence in the world.

>> Here the feeling is, the end of the Cold War is at hand.

>> For many people, there is a defining moment in their history when all things after that moment refer back to it in some way.

>> From ABC, this is "World News..." >> NARRATOR: For Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Putin... >> ...reporting tonight from Berlin.

>> They are here in the thousands, they are here in the tens of thousands.

>> NARRATOR: ...the Berlin Wall coming down was such a moment.

>> Putin sees that this thing that had always seemed to be glued together well, seemed to be impervious, that had gone from generation to generation of change in the top party officials, seemed to be a rock... >> Only one battle in a non-violent war... >> ...it was starting to crumble before his eyes.

>> 1989 will be a year remembered for communism's loss of influence in the world.

>> Mr. Putin joined Russian intelligence during their waning days, in the latter years of the Cold War, when they really felt aggrieved and the much lesser power than the United States.

So I think they just reinforced some of his feelings of insecurity.

>> They say they'll never return to communism and promise free democratic elections.

>> NARRATOR: As anti-Soviet protests spread to Dresden, angry crowds marched on the German secret police, the Stasi headquarters, then Putin's KGB building.

It would be the first time Putin faced such a threat.

>> He calls Moscow, trying to understand what he is to do, trying to get orders, and Moscow doesn't respond.

>> NARRATOR: A Soviet military officer told him, "Moscow is silent."

For Putin, it was an unconscionable sign of weakness and inaction.

>> And this is a massive, massive trauma for him, that this massive historical event is happening, Soviet influence is collapsing before his eyes, and he calls home, he radios home, and home isn't there.

>> Freedom and democracy are coming to parts of Eastern Europe.

>> NARRATOR: As Putin returned to Russia, the chaos had spread.

(crowd cheering) He would witness an attempted coup by communist hardliners angry about democratic reforms.

>> This has been an extraordinary day in the Soviet Union.

>> August of 1991 is when the last gasp of the hardliners tries to preserve Soviet power.

Vladimir Putin is watching all of this from St. Petersburg.

>> The plotters of that attempted coup, the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and the KGB, had everything.

The KGB, the police, the army, the tanks.

Of course, they had the tanks, which they sent physically to occupy central Moscow.

>> Tanks were also positioned outside the Russian Parliament building, Boris Yeltsin's headquarters.

>> NARRATOR: The tanks were met by democratic activists led by the popular Russian president, Boris Yeltsin.

>> Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Republic of Russia, is at the center of what resistance there is.

>> Boris Yeltsin was a key figure.

He was the one who stood on top of that tank as a symbol.

As a powerful symbol of the resistance against those plotters, against that coup.

>> Nyet!

>> Nyet!

>> NARRATOR: The hardliners backed down, unwilling to use the tanks on fellow Russians.

>> (speaking Russian) (crowd cheering) >> NARRATOR: The coup collapsed.

>> What Putin comes away from 1991 is, never be weak.

When you are weak, you fall.

When you are weak, they beat you.

And he has said version of this time and time again during his time in public life: When you are weak, you are beaten.

And he determines that he will never be weak in whatever form he takes in the years to come.

(crowd cheering and whistling) >> NARRATOR: After the failed coup, Putin watched as protesters continued the dismantling of the Soviet empire.

They marched to KGB headquarters.

>> They turned their attention to the statue across the street-- Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police.

>> Putin famously said that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the previous century.

So he sees that as an injustice.

Indeed, as an insult.

>> None of us can fully appreciate the humiliation that was felt by so many, to be a great power one day and to dissolve another day, with, in some ways, without explanation.

And this chaos is exactly what birthed Vladimir Putin as the future leader of Russia.

He was the one who would bring order to that chaos.

>> NARRATOR: In the new Russia, Putin would reinvent himself as a political operative and bureaucratic fixer.

>> He's a master bureaucrat.

Russia has always been a bureaucratic autocracy.

This is how, for example, Stalin became the general secretary.

He was an amazing bureaucrat.

He out-bureaucrated all the other bureaucrats.

And Putin does, too.

He is very good at the bureaucracy of all of it.

>> NARRATOR: He worked to get close to the man who'd confronted the tanks: Boris Yeltsin.

>> Putin appreciates strength.

And whatever else Yeltsin was, he was a strong figure-- bombastic, you know, energetic.

And Putin, I think, that was what appealed to Putin about him.

>> NARRATOR: Putin won Yeltsin over-- professing to share the president's democratic goals.

>> He's a professional liar.

To lie is what he was taught in the intelligence school.

He was pretending that he was going to pursue the same development of Russia as Yeltsin did.

But that's all is just one big lie.

>> NARRATOR: Yeltsin put Putin in charge of the KGB's successor, the FSB.

>> He undertakes this remarkable rise, basically having nothing to do with the, the center of power in Moscow to running its most important security agency, working in the Kremlin.

>> Another major shakeup in the Kremlin.

Yeltsin fires his entire cabinet again-- who's in charge?

>> (speaking Russian) >> NARRATOR: And soon, he would become Yeltsin's number two, Russia's prime minister.

>> ...a new prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a man of little political experience, but a long career... >> The biggest in the initial reaction when people heard his name being announced as acting prime minister on the ninth of August 1999 by President Yeltsin, the first reaction was, "Who is that?"

Most people had never heard of this guy.

>> NARRATOR: How Putin would wield his power and deal with threats quickly became clear.

>> Just a few weeks, really, after he became prime minister, we had a very suspicious slate of apartment bombings across Russia.

>> A bomb destroyed an apartment building in Moscow, and it does appear... >> NARRATOR: There were suspicions about who really set off the bombs.

But the government claimed it was the work of separatists from the Russian republic Chechnya.

>> Everybody's home asleep in their beds.

And these large apartment blocks just folded in on themselves, burying these people alive, or dead, but burying everybody in the building.

(emergency vehicles beeping) >> NARRATOR: For Putin, it was a chance to demonstrate Russia's might.

(sirens chirping) >> This prime minister that, most people don't even remember his name, and suddenly he comes on television.

He says, "We're going to hunt down the terrorists and we're going to wipe them out in the outhouse."

>> (speaking Russian): >> When the apartment bombings happen, it gives him the excuse he needs to finally go after what has become a morass in Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan.

(firing) >> NARRATOR: Putin struck Chechnya with incredible force.

>> (speaking Russian) (translated): This was his decision-- he was angry, and he wanted to punish the separatists.

>> He is seen on TV as a doer, an, a man of action.

He goes down there, he's talking to the troops.

He is in command.

>> NARRATOR: As Putin suited up for the cameras, his political fortunes were on the rise.

And just a few months later, he was inaugurated as Russia's new president.

>> (speaking Russian): >> NARRATOR: Putin's first promise to the Russian people: strength.

>> (speaking Russian): >> Putin presented himself to the people as the state, the guy that would bring back power.

He is a statist-- he believes that himself, his presidency, and the state are one.

>> NARRATOR: To help project his power, Putin turned to his public relations guru.

>> (speaking Russian) (translated): He began to think that everything can be manipulated.

Any kind of press, any TV program is all about manipulation.

It was decided what TV channels would show what news.

>> NARRATOR: They made sure a dynamic, vital, and charismatic Putin was on display for all Russians to see.

>> He's healthy, he's young, he's virile.

He casts himself as a savior.

He's bringing back a kind of dignity and strength to the Russian presidency that had been missing.

>> (shouting): Ura!

("State Anthem of the Russian Federation" begins) (singing in Russian) >> NARRATOR: And Putin even resurrected Joseph Stalin's national anthem.

(anthem continues) >> He came to see himself as almost ordained to lead Russia back to greatness.

If that is your ordained mission... ...then there aren't a lot of limits on the means you can use to achieve that goal.

>> NARRATOR: An early example of how far Putin would go to put down any challenges began in the small town of Beslan.

>> Men and women wearing explosive belts attacked a school... >> It is definitely the worst hostage tragedy that Russia has ever seen.

>> NARRATOR: Terrorists seizing a school.

>> (speaking Russian) (translated): And the plan was that Putin would either capitulate or he would lose his image, his reputation.

This was a serious crisis.

This was a really serious crisis.

(radios running) >> NARRATOR: Putin wouldn't back down.

He ordered his army in.

Tanks and troops encircled the school.

(explosion pounds) And then an explosion.

(car alarms blaring) And chaos.

(people yelling, guns firing) >> The army shelled the school at point-blank range.

They fired at it from tanks.

>> NARRATOR: Putin's troops were armed with rockets, grenade launchers, and flamethrowers.

>> A lot of the children who burned alive burned alive because of a fire that raged.

>> It turns into this debacle, and the end result is corpses of little children stacked like firewood.

>> More than 320 people were killed, half of them children, in the tragedy in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia.

>> NARRATOR: Putin seized on the tragedy to expand his power and control.

>> He's demanded a radical shakeup of security and greater powers for the Kremlin.

>> NARRATOR: He canceled elections throughout the country.

>> A stark message: governors and leaders... >> NARRATOR: And new rules forced out the most outspoken members of the Parliament.

>> And it was a cynical move, but at the same time, it also expresses, the way to respond to, to extreme violence and to extreme disorder is to create more dictator, dictatorial powers.

>> He's demanded a radical shakeup of security and greater powers.

>> (speaking Russian) (translated): After Beslan, the Kremlin had full power.

The government did not matter much any longer.

(speaking Russian) (translated): This Kremlin, the power these days is always in singular.

(speaking Russian) (translated): It doesn't matter where it is, it belongs to the president.

It comes from the president, flows out of the president.

>> The attack on the school in Beslan was a signature moment of revelation about, "Who is Vladimir Putin?"

What kind of brutality would use the tragedy of piles and piles of dead bodies of kids to eliminate democracy?

And now we're seeing Vladimir Putin use dead Ukrainian children to eliminate democracy and its vestiges inside of Russia, and that domestic crackdown goes hand-in-hand with Putin's war.

Those are one and the same phenomenon.

>> NARRATOR: On the world stage, Putin also sought to project his strength and Russia's in the face of ongoing challenges from the West, especially the U.S.

It was on full display in Munich at a conference of Western leaders.

>> (speaking German) >> And so he comes to the security conference in Munich and says, basically, "I don't have to mince words, do I?

I can say what's on my mind."

And then he, he just lashes out, and he lists all these resentments.

>> (speaking Russian): >> My head snapped.

It was so searing and blunt, and I, I felt this was the real guy.

>> (speaking Russian): >> Putin echoed Cold War rhetoric by accusing the U.S. of making the world unsafe.

>> NARRATOR: The speech was a turning point-- a sign of the aggressive direction Putin would take.

>> Putin clearly, in this speech, was drawing a line and saying, "We're not going to try anymore.

"We're just giving up on you.

"And we're going to make our own world in which we are the master."

>> It's one of Putin's harshest attacks on America in his seven-year term.

>> That speech in 2007 is the anchor point at which he tells us the Europe he wants and the international order he wants, and he has worked towards it since then.

>> NARRATOR: He had positioned himself as a strongman and set his country on a course towards conflict and war.

>> He sees himself as restoring Russia to absolute greatness in the world and reassembling, basically, the Russian Empire.

>> A very serious development in the Arab world... >> NARRATOR: In the Middle East, the Arab Spring would play to Putin's deepest fears.

(crowd chanting) Democratic uprisings in Tunisia.

Syria.

Egypt.

>> Vladimir Putin looks at what's happening in the Arab world, and he sees it as Dresden all over again.

He sees it as the American meddling in other countries' affairs to the detriment of Mother Russia.

>> The sound of freedom.

President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down.

>> When Putin looks at the Arab Spring, he thinks, "They're dictators; I'm a dictator.

"They're tyrants; I'm a tyrant.

They end up in a cage; I could end up in a cage."

He certainly thinks that because that is the logic of being a tyrant.

You know, as we know from Plato to Shakespeare, the logic of being a tyrant is that you're going to be afraid of ending that way.

>> The political mutiny that began in Tunisia spread to Egypt and beyond, and has reached Libya.

>> NARRATOR: For Putin, the peril of the Arab Spring exploded into sharp relief in Libya, where rebel forces captured his ally, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

(crowd yelling) >> Vladimir Putin talked about the fall of Libya over and over again.

He would talk about the scene of Muammar Gaddafi, the Great Lion of Libya, reduced to a man hiding in a drainage pipe, cowering with his own gun in his hand, where he was dragged out by his people and was killed.

>> Putin watches that tape over and over and over again.

It's all he can talk about for quite some time.

>> (speaking Russian) (crowd cheering) >> Tens of thousands came out on the streets to tell Prime Minister Vladimir Putin they'd had enough.

>> NARRATOR: Soon, the fervor reached Moscow: democracy protests, a direct threat to Putin's power.

>> More than 100,000 people came out to say, "No, enough, we are fed up with this."

This was the largest demonstration held in Russia, in Moscow, since the democratic revolution of August 1991.

>> NARRATOR: Putin responded with force.

He ordered a crackdown on protesters and dissidents.

>> (translated): They started enacting searches, arrests, detentions, actions against opposition leaders, persecution in the mass media.

And they launched individual persecution that applied to tens of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in the country.

>> (yelling in Russian) >> This was a clear message that, "It's over.

"You've had your fun-- it's done, it's over.

"I am the president, you are not toppling me, I am the law."

>> NARRATOR: He would not do as the communist hardliners had in 1991.

He would not back down, show any weakness.

>> The breakup of the Soviet Union was this signal event in the education of Vladimir Putin.

He was always determined to crush opposition.

It's not a very subtle attitude here.

The, the attitude is, "Crush the opposition.

Destroy it, physically, if need be."

And there's a pile of corpses of those who overtly challenged Moscow.

>> Bad things often happen to opponents... >> He was forced into exile in England after... >> NARRATOR: Many of Putin's opponents inside Russia fled the country.

Others died mysterious deaths.

>> Vladimir Putin's top opponent saying, quote, "I am scared that Putin will kill me."

>> Death of a former Vladimir Putin aide discovered... >> NARRATOR: One, who nearly died twice from poisoning, was Vladimir Kara-Murza.

>> ...Kremlin, so very close to Vladimir Putin's office.

>> There's been a very high mortality rate in the last several years among the people who have crossed the path of Vladimir Putin's Kremlin-- independent journalists, anti-corruption campaigners, opposition activists, opposition leaders.

Many people have died.

Some in strange and unexplained deaths, others in just straight-out assassinations.

>> NARRATOR: Eventually, Kara-Murza himself would be imprisoned for treason.

>> (speaking Russian) >> Give you a live look now at Sochi.

Today's opening ceremony takes place... >> NARRATOR: Even as he demonstrated his power at home, Putin again turned his attention to projecting the image of Russia as a global superpower.

>> (speaking Russian) >> For Putin, hosting the Olympics is the crescendo of his campaign to revive Russian greatness.

>> It was the kind of pageantry which Putin and Russians in general loved.

He was riding very high.

This was, you know, a moment of personal and national triumph from his point of view.

(crowd cheers and applauds) >> (speaking Russian): (crowd cheering) >> Sochi was a huge moment for Vladimir Putin, and it was meant to be his validation and crowning moment of acceptance on the world stage as, you know, sort of the new Russian tsar.

>> NARRATOR: But it was at this moment of glory that Ukraine would begin to emerge as a profound challenge to Putin.

>> Ukraine is stuck very much in the middle, both geographically and... >> With protests in neighboring Ukraine, what is Russian President Vladimir... >> NARRATOR: Pro-democracy protests in the former Soviet republic.

Resistance to Putin's authority and influence.

>> Protests first flared back in November, when Ukrainian... >> To have a democratic Ukraine, a Ukraine that cared more about being in NATO than it did being in Moscow's orbit, that's a huge threat to Vladimir Putin.

That was something that was simply unacceptable.

>> He has a special thing about Ukraine.

He believes Ukraine really is part of Russia, and he is determined to reverse this geopolitical catastrophe that separated Ukraine from Russia.

>> NARRATOR: Putin's response: He seized the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

>> Thousands of armed Russian troops arrived in the Crimea region.

>> NARRATOR: He sent in thousands of unmarked Russian soldiers.

>> They moved in with what the Ukrainians called "little green men."

And they were clearly, by the way they handled themselves and their weapons, professional military.

Wearing Russian-style combat uniforms, but no insignia.

>> Russian forces in the thousands, seizing territory.

>> That invasion, sending these little green men... >> More Russian soldiers have reportedly arrived in Crimea.

>> ...sending these Russian soldiers without insignia into a neighboring country, into Crimea, was such a shock.

This hadn't happened since World War II.

>> ...occupying sovereign territory that belongs to Ukraine.

>> NARRATOR: Putin didn't stop with Crimea.

He moved into Ukraine's East.

(firing) (pounding, firing) >> He used another form of deception, which was to send in irregular forces, mercenaries who had been recruited.

Putin claimed, "There are no Russian forces in this war."

But in fact, he was organizing the whole thing behind the scenes.

>> NARRATOR: Some of Putin's fighters were from the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.

>> Putin's used Wagner, this private military company, in ways that allow him to have deniability.

He can deny that it was actually the Russian government doing this.

>> NARRATOR: The Wagner forces were led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who'd been close to Putin for decades.

They called him "Putin's chef."

>> He was a caterer.

That's how Putin met him.

And in the modern Russia of Vladimir Putin's mafia state, he endeared himself to Putin.

>> What he was was a hatchet man.

He was a loyalist who was willing to do the dirty jobs that Vladimir Putin needed, who made himself useful to the Kremlin in, in an astonishing variety of ways.

And really, it's not everybody who can both be your caterer for your banquets and your killer, your hired assassin.

>> NARRATOR: As the fighting in Ukraine dragged on, the Wagner Group became increasingly important on the battlefield, and their leader increasingly powerful.

♪ ♪ >> Prigozhin is the guy who will do whatever Putin wants him to do.

He is his oligarch.

Prigozhin was one of the ones that Putin brought up to be his instrument of power, if you will.

>> NARRATOR: And Putin used Prigozhin for one of his most audacious acts that would lead to Prigozhin's indictment for his role in interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

>> Yevgeny Prigozhin, he was the guy running that whole operation in 2016.

And it did a lot of damage to America internally.

We have yet to recover from the polarization that that election produced.

>> NARRATOR: The interference included misinformation on the internet, fake users designed to look like Americans, trolls supporting the Kremlin, an army of automated bots on Twitter, and targeted advertisements on Facebook and Google-- all calculated to hurt Hillary Clinton and help her rival, Donald Trump.

>> This was the most aggressive, the most direct, and most assertive campaign that the Russians ever mounted in the history of our elections.

And what characterized this were the variety and intensity of the techniques that, that they employed.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: In Moscow, Putin denied interfering in the American election.

>> Everybody started about, to talk about Russia.

Some questions were asked, yet Vladimir Putin clearly enjoyed himself when he was asked these questions in, in the beginning of September.

He gave some, well, conventional answers with some wink, but that was all.

>> (speaking Russian): >> There's always plausible deniability built into the system.

So a lot of the hackers that are working for the Russian government, they're not necessarily wearing, you know, epaulets and uniforms.

They're not necessarily sitting in G.R.U.

bunkers in Moscow or somewhere in Russia.

A lot of them are freelancers.

>> NARRATOR: At the center of much of the interference was Yevgeny Prigozhin-- who ran a hub called the Internet Research Agency.

>> Prigozhin had created this factory of trolls.

(camera shutter clicking) Internet snoops to try and attack the United States during the election and influence the election.

>> They even sent some of the young Russians who were working on this to the United States to go through battleground states, to try to, you know, get a sense of ground truth, if you will, and what kinds of campaigns to destabilize U.S. politics might work in the 2016 election.

>> (speaking Russian) >> NARRATOR: On Election Day in the U.S., victory for Trump.

>> (speaking Russian) >> NARRATOR: And in Russia, for Putin, a sign of strength.

>> It did demonstrate to ordinary Russians Putin is deciding the fate of American elections.

It is taken as a sign of Putin's greatness and of Russia's greatness, as well.

>> From Putin's point of view, he won.

Not only did the candidate he favored come out on top, he has disrupted Americans' faith in their own democracy so that we're all turning on each other and we're busy fighting with each other, and, in his mind, hopefully too distracted to pose a threat to him on the world stage.

>> NARRATOR: Putin was emboldened.

>> As long as Trump was president, I think Putin felt he had a free hand, essentially.

Putin felt unbound and unconstrained.

>> NARRATOR: He launched risky overseas operations designed to punish and instill fear.

>> A spy and his daughter apparently poisoned.

Britain's foreign minister accused Putin of ordering the poisoning.

>> He's gotten away with everything so far, so why not push it a little step further?

>> NARRATOR: He demonstrated his military might on new battlefields.

>> U.N. investigators just linked Russia to a possible war crime in Syria.

>> He's using the battlefields of Syria as ways to improve his own military's operational performance, to show that Russia is a kingmaker beyond Russia's so-called near abroad in Central Asia.

Even risking direct confrontation with American military forces a couple of times in skirmishes in Syria.

>> NARRATOR: And he used Prigozhin's Wagner Group as the tip of the spear.

>> The Wagner Group carries out secret combat operations on the Kremlin's behalf.

>> Prigozhin is expanding his empire to Africa, to the Middle East.

And we in the United States are not paying attention.

>> The Russians are stepping back in the heart of Africa.

>> They become, in effect, Putin's army of influence.

>> And wherever they have gone has never been terribly good news for the local population.

>> They're the ones who go to governments in far-off places and negotiate deals and force them to kowtow to Russian interests.

And they exercise power in a violent and brutal way.

They are accused of torture and war crimes in all sorts of places.

>> Horrific torture and murder of a Syrian man allegedly at the hands of Russian Wagner mercenaries.

>> We now understand that Prighozin was building, you know, a state within a state.

He was building his own army.

He was building a major power center that he envisioned using inside of Russia.

>> Putin understood and appreciated the Wagner forces to some extent.

But I don't think he realized how much better they were than his regular military, and how much more they could achieve, and how much power that gave Prigozhin.

>> NARRATOR: From inside the Kremlin, over two decades, Vladimir Putin had been amassing and protecting his power.

By 2022, he was on the verge of his most high-risk move yet-- finally finishing what he'd started in Ukraine years before.

>> He wants to be a great historical figure for Russia.

Putin the Great is what he wants to be.

And one of the deeds that Putin the Great will have accomplished is reuniting Russia with Ukraine.

>> Russia without Ukraine is a country.

Russia with Ukraine is an empire.

And that's where Putin seems to be headed.

That means a lot of wars and a lot of dead people.

>> Vladimir Putin is about to chair a meeting of the Russian Security Council.

>> Vladimir Putin will address his Security Council at a special session.

>> NARRATOR: For the cameras, Putin assembled his war cabinet.

>> (speaking Russian) >> You have him striding his sort of cocky walk and sitting by himself.

And his advisers, they're literally sitting, like, 30 feet away from Putin.

>> (speaking Russian) >> They're sitting in an array like schoolchildren.

This looked more like something you would see in a royal court than, than you would see in a, in a modern government.

>> (speaking Russian): (all speaking Russian) >> I think back to that Security Council meeting, and I realize how scared they must all be of him.

It just felt like they were dancing bears performing for their master, who is impossible to please.

♪ ♪ >> (speaking Russian): >> You see how this all went down, how much of it was driven just by one man, his deranged ideas, and everybody around him was too scared to say anything about it or to resist.

>> NARRATOR: Vladimir Putin had made the fateful decision: the full-on invasion of Ukraine.

>> It's a classical problem of tyranny.

You know, Plato diagnosed it.

You reach a certain point, no one's going to tell you the truth.

And also, if you stay in power for too long, you're going to start to be governed by your own fantasies of the way the world should be.

The older you get, I'm afraid, the more likely you are to be backed into a corner by these phantasmagoria of your own creation, and that's where Putin is.

>> (speaking Russian): (firing) (explosions pounding) >> Ukraine is calling this a full-scale invasion.

>> The biggest war in Europe since World War II.

>> The world is waiting to see just how far Putin's 190,000 troops will go into the country of Ukraine.

Will he stop with the two breakaway regions?

>> He has gambled his entire time in office on this one decision.

This is what he will be remembered for.

Not anything else he did.

And he decided to put everything on this.

>> Apocalyptic scenes on the outskirts of the capital.

>> A non-stop onslaught over the last 24 hours, with mass casualties.

>> Tens of thousands of civilians trapped in cities under near-constant Russian shellfire.

>> NARRATOR: But despite the devastation, it would not go as Putin wanted.

The Ukrainians, with massive international support, held their ground.

(explosion echoing) >> The U.S. and NATO allies are working quickly to arm Ukraine.

>> Russian forces caught off-guard, apparently in disarray.

>> Russia thought the invasion would be over swiftly.

That was before their jets were plummeting from Ukrainian skies.

>> He clearly miscalculated the capabilities of the Russian military, the capabilities of the Ukrainian military, the willingness of the Ukrainian people to fight for their independence.

This was a miscalculation of Napoleonic magnitude.

>> Ukraine's president remains defiant.

>> Ukraine's resolve has shocked the world and frustrated the Russians.

>> Putin's war was a disaster.

>> ...estimated that Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties.

>> Putin's war is a catastrophe for Russia.

>> Russia has thrown hundreds of thousands of troops into its war in Ukraine.

>> Tens of thousands of military casualties.

Just imagine the pain and suffering of so many thousands of families.

>> Russians, too, are suffering the consequences of this war, particularly the families of the servicemen.

>> The losses, the complete disastrous military operations.

>> The morale is very, very low among Russian troops.

>> Troops with poor morale, turning and running.

>> Russian troops fleeing, and one even having to crawl away from the battlefield.

>> The absolute horrible war crime stories.

>> Ukraine again is accusing the Kremlin of targeting civilians.

>> The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes.

>> NARRATOR: In the face of it all, Putin doubled down.

>> Coming out of Russia, where Vladimir Putin is preparing for a longer and more intense war on Ukraine.

>> NARRATOR: He cracked down on dissent at home.

>> Thousands of anti-war demonstrators have been detained just in the past few days.

>> NARRATOR: He mobilized more troops.

>> Russia wants 300,000 new soldiers... >> (shouting) >> ...but many Russians don't want to serve.

>> NARRATOR: And Putin once again turned to Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner forces.

>> When the Russian armed forces prove to be so ineffective, Putin increasingly turns to the Wagner Group, turns to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the guy who had been his executor on various goals for years now, in a much more effective way.

So, if the regular military can't do it, fine.

Send in the Prigozhin troops.

>> (speaking Russian): >> Putin gave Prigozhin the authority to go into prisons and recruit them.

>> (speaking Russian): >> Prigozhin was pretty good at this.

He'd spent a bunch of time in prisons himself, as a prisoner, so he knew how to talk to prisoners, and he got a lot of them into Wagner, into his forces, by promising them amnesty.

>> (speaking Russian): (man yelling in background) >> NARRATOR: Prigozhin's army of convicts and battle-hardened mercenaries laid waste to Ukrainian cities.

(explosions pounding) >> Wagner mercenaries are somewhat united in their brutality and in all of the human rights abuses that they commit together.

It almost binds them together in a way that you wouldn't have if they were abiding by regular rules of war.

Because they are complicit in a, in a huge crime, and they know it.

>> NARRATOR: In Russia, Wagner's brutal successes made Prigozhin a star.

>> Prigozhin styles himself as a man of the troops.

He's in fatigues.

He's in combat gear.

He's there on the frontline with his troops.

>> (clapping) >> Prigozhin is almost overtly recalling the kind of macho action figure of Vladimir Putin's early years in power.

>> NARRATOR: As his celebrity grew, Prigozhin was increasingly outspoken.

>> (speaking Russian): >> NARRATOR: Critical of the Kremlin's handling of the war.

>> (speaking Russian): >> Prigozhin baldly addressed some of these things that Putin wouldn't talk about, which is the losses, the pain, the difficulty of the war.

>> (speaking Russian): >> He was screaming from Ukraine about the need for more ammunition and blaming Putin's military commander and his defense minister.

>> (speaking Russian): >> Putin has lost control over Prigozhin once Prigozhin gets, gets angry about the treatment of his forces, and he feels like no one in, in the Kremlin, no one in Moscow cares.

>> NARRATOR: Finally, Prigozhin took matters into his own hands.

>> Putin in crisis after an armed mutiny and a march on Moscow.

>> Prigozhin threatens to move on to Moscow.

Yes, to Moscow.

>> NARRATOR: The threat Vladimir Putin had always feared had arrived.

>> The stunning revolt by Russian mercenaries raising new questions about Vladimir Putin's hold on power.

>> They were both on a collision course.

>> Prigozhin is vowing to destroy everything put in his forces' way as they attempt to march back to Moscow.

>> They were both headed for conflict.

>> An angry Vladimir Putin vowing to crush the rebellion, calling it treason and a stab in the back.

>> Both were determined to smash the other.

>> A column of Wagner fighters was noticed near Lipetsk, now just 220 miles from Moscow.

>> It's the monster Vladimir Putin himself unleashed.

The monster, first of all, being the invasion of Ukraine in the first place, without which this wouldn't have happened.

And also, the monster being Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, which really would not exist if it had not been for the patronage of Vladimir Putin.

>> ...what the Kremlin calls terrorist methods, blackmail, and what is clearly a mutiny... >> NARRATOR: But then, to everyone's surprise, it was over.

>> Dramatic breaking news in a quite extraordinary day.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has ordered his mercenaries to turn around and return to their bases.

>> Just 120 miles from Moscow, they turned back after a mysterious deal was reached.

>> The revolt ends with Putin and the Belarusian president announcing that they worked out a compromise, and that Prigozhin has agreed to essentially withdraw his troops.

>> Russian President Vladimir Putin attempting damage control after the biggest ever threat to his 24-year rule.

>> Putin did look weak in the face of this challenge.

>> Just three days ago, Putin looked unassailable, the strongman with an iron grip on power.

This morning, he looks vulnerable.

>> He was afraid, I think, to kill Prigozhin or to, to do it publicly.

He was afraid to have those mercenaries killed or jailed.

And that's a sign of weakness if you're an autocrat.

>> And also bringing new questions: Is Vladimir Putin's iron grip on power in peril?

>> NARRATOR: As Prigozhin left Rostov military headquarters, a crowd gathered.

>> This man was a mutineer.

He was the leader of a mutiny against the government of Russia, and he's getting cheered in Rostov.

(crowd cheering) This has to be worrisome to Putin.

(car horn honking, people talking in background) >> Enormous damage has been done to Putin's authority, to his image as somebody ruthlessly in control of all the levers of power in Russia.

Putin has been revealed to be indecisive, to not be in control, and to be vulnerable to future challenges like the one Prigozhin posed.

>> To the extent that he spent 23 years building up this idea that Russia was a real power again, it had to be respected, it had to be treated with deference, that's all gone.

Nobody thinks that Russia is a great power now; they think it's an outlaw.

And I think that all the things he spent these last 23 years trying to accomplish, everything he spent these 23 years trying to build, is just gone.

>> NARRATOR: Vladimir Putin had survived the unprecedented mutiny.

But the danger was just beginning.

>> It's also called into question his political future for the first time in 23 years.

>> Many questions still remain about Vladimir Putin's grip on power, about the future of the war in Ukraine.

>> The ramifications are far from over.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline for more of Frontline's reporting on Vladimir Putin including dozens of extended interviews.

And find out the latest on where some of Putin's critics are now.

>> There's been a very high mortality rate and the last serval years among the people who have crossed the path of Vladimir Putin's Kremlin... >> Connect with FRONTLINE on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and stream anything on the PBS App, YouTube, or pbs.org/frontline.

Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org.

>> For more on this and other Frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Frontline's "Putin's Crisis" is available on Amazon Prime Video.