Putin’s Road to War
Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2022, at 9/8c on PBS and on YouTube
Streaming at 7/6c at pbs.org/frontline & in the PBS Video App
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As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine intensifies, forcing more than two million Ukrainians to flee the country and become refugees, FRONTLINE will premiere Putin’s Road to War — an epic examination of what brought Putin, and the world, to this dangerous tipping point. 

Drawing on in-depth conversations with multiple heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, diplomats, Russian politicians, historians and journalists, this new report chronicles defining moments that shaped Putin’s life and leadership, examining the grievances that have pushed him to launch a risky and deadly war with Ukraine.

“I do think this is a culmination. I do think [Putin] sees his life as having led him to this point, to this momentous point,” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tells FRONTLINE. 

From acclaimed FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk and his award-winning political team, Putin’s Road to War offers inside analysis from Moscow to Washington, D.C., including revealing new interviews and those originally conducted for the 2017 two-hour FRONTLINE special, Putin’s Revenge.

To understand the story of the war with Ukraine and its implications for the rest of the world, Putin’s Road to War first tells the story of Vladimir Putin as a man — revealing how his political motivations and personal history served as a fertile foundation for global conflict. 

“This was not the war of the Russian people against the Ukrainian people. This really is Vladimir Putin’s war,” New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser tells FRONTLINE. 

The documentary traces how Putin went from low-ranking KGB agent to power-hungry, long-serving president of Russia with the ability to bring Europe to the brink of deadly nuclear conflict.

“Vladimir Putin is going to rank up there as one of the worst and most brutal killers of the 21st century. And his career in power has been marked by a willingness to use extreme force and violence and war as a tool of his repression, internal and external,” Glasser adds.

As violence escalates in Ukraine and Putin vows to arrest and imprison any Russian civilians speaking out against him, Putin’s Road to War is an urgent report on what led to this historic moment and how it could still unfold.  

“You’re starting to see in retrospect how this all happened and how much of it was driven just by one man, his deranged ideas, and how everybody around him thought it was a terrible idea, but was too scared to say anything about it or to resist,” Puck News Founding Partner and Washington Correspondent Julia Ioffe tells FRONTLINE. “He is the most dangerous he has ever been because it is now existential for him.”

Putin’s Road to War will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS Video App starting Mar. 15, 2022, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on YouTube at 9/8c. In tandem with the documentary’s premiere, FRONTLINE will also publish six new interviews from the film and as part of the FRONTLINE Transparency Project. Putin’s Road to War is distributed internationally by PBS International.

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Credits
Putin’s Road to War is a FRONTLINE production with the Kirk Documentary Group.  The director is Michael Kirk.  The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser, Vanessa Fica, Jim Gilmore and Philip Bennett. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser.  The executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath

About FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 100 Emmy Awards and 26 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Park Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Laura DeBonis.

FRONTLINE Press Contact: frontlinemedia@wgbh.org, 617.300.5312