As with many dictators, Vladimir Putin cuts an intimidating yet ridiculous figure: he is both a stain on history and a walking caricature of tin-pot egotism. The story of his rise and rise (the fall, alas, seems some way off) has been told many times – but the BBC has found a new angle by making him the latest subject of its In Ten Pictures series (BBC Two, Thursday 9pm).
He is in exalted company, as Ten Pictures has previously told the story of Nelson Mandela and Amy Winehouse via a paper trail of iconic photos. But Putin is different – this silly, strutting man has destroyed millions of lives. If he is a joke, then the punchline arrives dripping with the blood of innocents.
The portrait that emerges in this survey of his life and times is of a Bond villain made flesh – a KGB spook who carried into politics the brutality and paranoia that were inculcated in him as a secret policeman.
It comes as little surprise that none of those interviewed actually like Putin – and they don’t much respect him either. Looking at a picture from his days as a fixer in St Petersburg, former BBC Russian correspondent Bridget Kendall recalls how he once fended off a difficult question by asking how much her jewellery had cost. Oh, how he had smirked as she stumbled over the question – enjoying seeing her squirm. “He did it on purpose. … He was quite pleased with himself.”
A school picture captures him as a slight boy – short and unimposing, but with dark, veiled eyes. In snapshots from his days in St Petersburg, he looks like a mafia consigliere – which was essentially his job, as he attached himself, limpet-like, to the city’s mayor, Anatoly Sobchak. Most unsettling of all is that famous photoshoot he did when Time named him person of the year in 2007. Now he really is a don unleashed, leaning back in his favourite chair, regarding the camera through hooded eyes – a man versed in making people offers they could not refuse.
“What does that say about the new world order?” says art critic Hettie Judah of the Time image. “It elevates him in a way that places him on a more imperial footing – makes him look like a world power.”
A distinction is drawn between early Putin and the politician who returned as president of Russia in 2012 after being required to temporarily serve as prime minister under Dmitry Medvedev. Back in the hot seat, he was a dictator unleashed, according to Nadya Tolokonnikova, co-founder of Pussy Riot, who spent two years in jail after staging an anti-Putin protest in a Moscow Cathedral.
All criticism was verboten in this new Russia. When Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the journey from a chaotic Mafia state to totalitarian hellscape was complete, says Marina Ovsyannikova, a former producer for Russian state TV who became very prominent when she protested the war in Ukraine during a live broadcast. “My protests lasted only six seconds – someone had to stand up and tell the truth,” she says.
One of the final photos features Putin opposite French president Emmanuel Macron, each at the opposite end of a comically long table – like Dr Evil’s table in the Austin Powers movie.
The image is comedic – until you remember that Macron was trying to talk Putin out of invading Ukraine and that within a few weeks this vain, ridiculous man with a head full of “botox” (as one interviewee puts it) would be responsible for the deaths of thousands in that invasion. No camera can capture that level of evil – but this gripping documentary nonetheless paints a sobering portrait of 21st-century despotism: suited, booted and ready for its close-up.
