Vladimir Putin's path from a cramped St Petersburg flat to the Kremlin's top office runs through this Timeline production, tracking his years as a KGB colonel, his rise as Boris Yeltsin's chosen successor, and the consolidation of power that followed. Sergei Pugachev, once a Kremlin insider who helped engineer Putin's ascent before falling out of favor, describes the machinery behind the throne. Garry Kasparov recalls his failed run against Putin, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, jailed and stripped of his fortune, speaks about crossing him. British officials add another angle: Jack Straw remembers Putin's first meeting with Tony Blair, a leader he seems to have studied closely, and William Hague recounts bonding with Putin over judo at the 2012 London Olympics before watching him annex Crimea regardless. Interviews with these former insiders and rivals are cut against archival footage of Putin's public rise, building a portrait of a man who studied Western leaders while building a system built to outlast them.