‘A new kind of czar’: Putin’s path from the KGB to the presidency

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• Judy Woodruff:

  The war in Ukraine is the making of one man, Russia's President Vladimir Putin. He is now in his third decade of ruling Russia, decades marked, at times, by cooperation with the West, but more often by antagonism and confrontation.

  Lisa Desjardins charts Putin's rise and reign.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  He is a new kind of czar, equal parts autocrat and operative. Before this, though, at 47 years old, in 2000, Vladimir Putin was a new president, praising a democratic transfer of power.

• Vladimir Putin, Russian President (through translator):

  For the first time in Russian history, the executive power of the country is being transferred democratically, legally, and peacefully.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  But, within a few years, he would change Russia's laws to keep power for himself.

  The same man who reached out to the U.S. president in 2005 denounced America as a threat just two years later in front of U.S. senators. And, in 2016, he ordered a Russian cyber campaign that attacked U.S. democracy itself with misinformation, lies that were anti-government and pro-Donald Trump.

  Constant throughout, Putin's survival instinct and grand ambitions. Those started here, St. Petersburg, Russia communist Leningrad, when Putin was born. According to Putin, his mother survived the brutal Nazi siege there, while his father fought elsewhere during World War II. He grew up in the 1950s and '60s, a time of surging Cold War and swelling pride in the Soviet Union.

  The space race with America was on. Heroes in Soviet movies were soldiers and spies.

  Amy Knight, Author, "How the Cold War Began": Putin was drawn to this — the lure of the of the KGB spy.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Amy Knight is a longtime Russia analyst. She has written six books on the subject.

  Putin joined the KGB in his 20s. And Knight points out his first assignment, in Leningrad, was preventing dissent.

• Amy Knight:

  This is an area of work where he's very strongly influenced by the Soviet paranoia about any opposition.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Then, in 1991, communist hard-liners tried and failed to overthrow reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev. Putin disavowed the coup attempt and resigned from the KGB. As the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin rose, from a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg to President Boris Yeltsin's right-hand man, in just six years, that rise, in part, to his handling of a Russian crisis.

• Amy Knight:

  The Chechen war started. This basically was what catapulted Putin to the presidency.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  In 1999, Putin took over and unleashed hell in Chechnya, a scorched-earth assault that left thousands of civilians dead.

  As Putin surged, Yeltsin plummeted. Facing criticism and health problems, Yeltsin resigned, making Putin president on the eve of the new millennium. His survival was tied to Russia's. He stabilized and breathed new life into the economy. Businesses opened. Poverty dropped.

  George W. Bush, Former President of the United States: I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. I was able to get a sense of his soul.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  And Putin warmed to the West, an ally after September 11, smiling and shaking hands across the world.

  But while he touted democracy, Putin was, in fact, building a government of one man, but, barely a year into his rule, terrible missteps that echoed from his Soviet past, the Kursk; 118 sailors perished after a submarine explosion. Russians lost precious days fumbling the rescue of those trapped. Putin lost trust while he stayed on vacation.

• Sergei Belayevsky, Russian Citizen (through translator):

  He, and not some subordinate, should have responded with a visit sooner here.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  His war with Chechnya and his iron fist approach turned tragic twice. Chechen militants took hostages in a Moscow theater in 2002. More than 100 died after Russian forces gassed the building.

  In 2004, Chechen terrorists seized a school in Beslan. More than 300 were killed, including 186 children, in a botched security response. That same year, a new grisly era began, the lethal poisoning of Putin's opponents. Some survived. Some died gruesome deaths, this as Putin stoked his tough guy image for the cameras and changed the face he showed the west.

  At the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin blasted NATO expansion and the United States specifically as threats.

• Vladimir Putin (through translator):

  One state, primarily the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every area, in economy, in politics, humanitarian, and educational policies it imposes on other nations.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  It was a stark warning that turned to warfare the next year. Russia rolled into breakaway parts of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, itself hoping to enter NATO.

  Soon, Putin had a new threat to his power. The Russian middle class now wanted a say. Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets, joining leaders like Alexei Navalny to challenge growing repression. They charged rampant election fraud by Putin.

  The "NewsHour" spoke with Navalny just before the presidential election in 2012.

• Alexei Navalny, Russian Opposition Leader (through translator):

  He's a kind of a czar, an autocrat. Unfortunately, he cannot imagine for himself another way of existence.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Again, Putin survived by force, arresting Navalny and other opponents, winning an unprecedented third term as president, and expanding suppression of some groups, including LGBTQ Russians.

  But resistance was also rising on Russia's border. In early 2014, Ukrainians revolted against their pro-Russian government, wanting closer ties with Europe. It was Putin's nightmare. He struck. Amidst a bloody crackdown that left dozens dead, Putin sent secret special forces, little green men, into majority-Russian Crimea, ultimately annexing the prized territory from Ukraine.

• Vladimir Putin (through translator):

  Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  In a kind of victory speech, Putin decried the West as the problem. He said he wanted Ukraine to be a sovereign state, but he also nodded toward Russian ambition.

• Vladimir Putin (through translator):

  Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common source, and we cannot live without each other.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Putin next turned to a divided region in Ukraine, the Donbass, where war began in May 2014, and fighting has continued since. Thousands were killed. But that wasn't enough.

  Putin now wants all of Ukraine. It's a core goal, to restore a Russian-run Eastern Europe a Russian empire, with him in charge.

• Amy Knight:

  I think he is genuinely fearful that Western values, democracy, could undermine his leadership and the whole regime.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Putin's attack is killing hundreds of Ukrainians, but thus far not breaking their will. It is their will to live and for self-preservation vs. a man who knows how to survive.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.