The first head of the secret police was the son of a Polish Catholic aristocrat – Feliz Dzerzhinsky – he soon earned the name Iron Felix. ibid.
Much of Soviet modernisation was achieved on the back of Gulag slavery. ibid.
It was execution on an industrial scale. ibid.
Nowhere would prove more important to Soviet Intelligence than a leafy English university town … The Soviets recruited the most notorious spy ring in history – the Cambridge Five. From 1940 these five Cambridge spies began to leak details of an American project to build a super-weapon. KGB: The Sword & The Shield II: Berija & Co
Khrushchev set out to reposition the communist party as the true defender of the people. ibid.
Philby would go on to serve the KGB as a trainer. ibid.
Andropov set about reversing many of the freedoms gained under Khrushchev. ibid.
The KGB had a mole somewhere at the very top of the CIA. No-one had a clue who he was. ibid.
In the summer of 1991 secret orders were sent out from KGB headquarters to field officers throughout the Soviet Union. The chairman of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, had ordered a quarter of a million pairs of handcuffs and three hundred thousand arrest warrants, and cancelled all KGB leave. Citizens of Moscow knew nothing of all this until tanks were on the streets. The announcement didn’t reveal that President Gorbachev was under house arrest in his dacha in the Crimea. KGB: The Sword & The Shield III, BBC 2019
Yeltzin now had control of the security apparatus. ibid.
Just one month after he [Putin] took office, four apartment blocks in major Russian cities were bombed. The outrage was attributed to Chechen rebels. ibid.
The poison attack was a warning to others: if you step out of line, there is no safe refuge. Radioactive polonium destroyed Alexander Litvinenko over 22 agonising days. ibid.
One year after the annexation of Crimea, a protest march was organised in Moscow by opposition leader Boris Nemsov. On the evening of the march, Nemtsov was murdered within sight of the Kremlin. He was shot four times in the head, heart, liver and stomach. All the CCTV cameras in the area were switched off for maintenance. ibid.
The security service has a state. ibid.
It was an idyllic life, wealth beyond anyone’s wildest dreams: homes across the world, a chateau in the south of France. Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, an aristocratic English rose, living a fairytale. The man of her dreams: billionaire Sergei Pugachev, an oligarch, one of Russia’s richest men. But it is all about to come crashing down. The Countess and the Russian Billionaire, BBC 2020
‘I’ve experienced a couple of assassination attempts. An attempt to murder me. It’s clear this is a war.’ ibid. Pugachev
Sergei cemented his power by becoming a senator in the upper house of the Russian parliament. Before long he had become one of Putin’s trusted advisers. But then he fell in love. ibid.
Putin had turned against his former oligarch allies. ibid.
In 2007 Sergei’s bank hit problems, and the Russian state bailed it out with a billion-dollar loan. Two years later, the bank still went under with no sign of what happened to the loan. ibid.
With Sergei now permanently in hiding, the threat from Russia hangs over the couple. ibid.
Over the next two years the death toll rises for enemies of the Russian state. ibid.
Now permanently separated from Alexandra, Sergei is consumed by his multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against the Russian state, whatever the dangers. ibid.
It stretched from the Pacific ocean to the fringes of Europe. The Soviet empire seemed invincible. But in 1989 the Iron curtain was swept away, and Moscow watched its empire crumble. Thirty years on, Russia is reasserting itself. They are fears of new flashpoints in Europe. The Baltic has become one of the frontlines that feels like a new Cold War. Our World: Russia: The Empire Strikes Back I, BBC 2020
By the end of the 19th century the Russian empire spanned one sixth of the surface of the world. Inside the Kremlin you can really feel the imperial ambition which has driven Russia for centuries. ibid.
Mikhail Gorbachev rejects criticism of his leadership. He is fiercely proud of his role in ending the Cold War. ibid.
The Soviet Union had gone. Russia was struggling. The returning soldiers were low priority. ibid.
Will a global pandemic curb the Kremlin’s global ambitions? Our World: Russia: The Empire Strikes Back II
Russia has become the dominant force in the black sea. ibid.
17th July 2014: Just after midday Flight MH17 takes off from Amsterdam bound for Kuala Lumpur. On board, the 298 passengers and crew … Three hours later MH17 is blown out of the sky over the Russian/Ukraine border. There are no survivors … Suspicion immediately falls on Ukraine’s nearest neighbour – Russia. Secret Wars Uncovered s1e1: Coup in Crimea, Sky History 2020
‘The annexation of Crimea was partly opportunistic and partly reactive. It was a response to what they saw as an aggressive extensive of western Europe.’ ibid. Anthony Brenton, British ambassador to Russia 2000-2008
Putin’s clandestine armies are sowing destruction, confusion and chaos across the region. ibid.
Crimea sits proudly at the top of the Black Sea. Crimea first became part of the Russian empire in the late eighteenth century. Catherine the Great, keen to expand her country’s influence in the east, sent her armies to occupy the region in 1768. But less than a century later, Russia was routed by Turkey and its western allies in a humiliating defeat in the Crimean war. ibid.
In 1954 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gifted Crimea back to Ukraine as part his programme of de-Stalinisation. ibid.
It holds more warheads than United Kingdom, China and France combined, making it the third largest nuclear power on Earth. ibid.
Ukraine will hand over this nuclear arsenal to be destroyed; in return, Russia will agree to respect the political integrity and independence of the whole of Ukraine, including Crimea. ibid.
Putin orders Russian special forces into Crimea and begins an audacious military coup. And it’s done and dusted before the West can do anything about it. ibid.
Russian forces go on to wage a military campaign in eastern Ukraine. ibid.
These peaceful demonstrations continue. They become known as the Orange Revolution. The Ukrainian Supreme Court declares the result [election] invalid, and orders a new election. On 23 January 2005 to the dismay of Vladimir Putin, [Viktor] Yushchenko finally wins the presidency of Ukraine. ibid.
In 2010, he [Putin] finally installs his puppet – Viktor Yanukovych. ibid.
As membership spreads eastwards, Nato troops and equipment are building up uncomfortably close to Russia’s border. ibid.
There is a secret army made up of mercenaries, volunteers and irregulars. ibid.
Meeting Gobachev by a German is burdened by History. The Nazi invasion left Russia a devastated country with some 25 million dead. Mikhail Gorbachev witnessed the war as an adolescent. Meeting Gorbachev, Werner Herzog reporting, Sky Documentaries 2020
He was 87 years now … [born] 1931 as the son of peasants … All of his family has been laid to rest … He lived much of his time with his maternal grandparents who treated him with tenderness. ibid.
‘I entered politics in my final year of school. That’s when I joined the communist party.’ ibid. Gorbachev
‘He proposed, as we all remember, Perestroika and Glasnost. He really believed that he could reform communism.’ ibid. Lech Walesa
‘The proposals to end the Cold War first came from the Soviet Union.’ ibid. Gorbachev
‘I still believe we need to keep moving forward, and rid the world of nuclear weapons – just as Reagan and I proposed.’ ibid.
‘We were able to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons … I believe we can resume our cooperation and nuclear disarmament.’ ibid.
‘Some people were in a rush. They wanted to seize power and they had plans of their own.’ ibid.
‘The candidates are fighting for every vote in this very tight race. Republican candidate Donald Trump has the lead across the country. Clinton or Trump?’ Agents of Chaos I, Russian television, director Alex Gibney, Sky Documentaries 2020
This Trump worship thing: what was that all about? ibid.
There were too many investigations to count ... But what exactly was the story? ibid.
The first piece of the puzzle pointed us toward a cyber trail on the internet where a motley band of Russian trolls had been busy making mischief on social media … The infamous troll factory known as the Internet Research Agency, or IRA. ibid.