In the two-part documentary Putin’s Revenge, FRONTLINE casts a light on the Russian President Vladimir Putin. In part one you’ll learn about Putin’s role in the KGB at the end of the Cold War and his rise to power under Boris Yeltsin. You’ll also hear about his ongoing strain with the United States including President Clinton, Bush, and Obama. By gaining firm control of Russian state media, Putin has been able to shift the blame of many global conflicts and uprisings onto the United States. His ire against the U.S. was eventually directed towards Hillary Clinton who was the U.S. Secretary of State at the time Muammar Gaddafi was ousted from power and killed in Libya.
Part two of Putin’s Revenge focuses on Putin’s more recent political meddling in the Ukraine and then in the Presidential election of the United States. U.S. intelligence agents and journalists comment on the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails and the cyber campaigns and fake news stories that were initiated to tarnish the campaign of Hillary Clinton. At the same time of these attacks, Republican candidate Donald Trump encouraged both the Russians and Wikileaks to hack emails in order to expose the corruption of his opponent Hillary Clinton. And on election day in November of 2016, Putin believed he had succeeded in his attempts to influence U.S. politics and derail the Hillary Clinton campaign, when Donald Trump was elected U.S. President.