After 19 years in power, Vladimir Putin’s reign can seem in retrospect an inevitability. Yet when Boris Yeltsin made his surprise announcement appointing Putin acting President on December 31, 1999, few Russians knew anything about the former KGB officer, and fewer still anticipated the scope of the crackdown to come. Ever since, debate has raged over who is most responsible for Putin’s rise, and whether his rule was the natural continuation of the Yeltsin era or a sharp break from it.Entering the fray now is acclaimed filmmaker Vitaly Mansky, whose new documentary Putin’s Witnesses recently debuted on RFE/RL’s Current Time …read more
Source: The American Interest
