PUTIN AND THE OLIGARCHS

Discover the true face of Vladimir Putin’s regime: billionaires who capitalized on the fall of the USSR, amassing colossal fortunes with the help of the government they pledged allegiance to. Part of their role involves negotiating arms deals, forming networks with Western politicians and funding political parties, keeping their assets fiercely secret all the while. They’re known as “oligarchs.” But who exactly are these people? A gripping investigation, Putin and the Oligarchs unveils the mysteries of an arcane system of corruption and influence.

When the USSR collapsed, a group of budding businessmen seized Russia’s natural resources and economic and political power, creating the first generation of oligarchs, only to be subjugated and transformed into purveyors of dark cash by a man who becomes their undisputed leader.

This is a story that borrows from gangster films, economic investigation and human comedy. Putin and the Oligarchs tells the story of how a bodyguard, Vladimir Putin, became a godfather. This is the story of a system in which a true-false patriot multiplies portfolios in the same way that other people multiply hangers-on.

The oligarchs form a parallel financial and political strike force, outside the law. They are the DNA of the regime.

The oligarchs’ money is used for pleasure, but also for war. This opaque world that the Russian elite has invented to conceal itself is being exposed by a multitude of activists. Their story is also revealed. Thanks to witnesses from the inside, this film follows their birth, their rise and their submission.

A Shakespearean tale of power, money and blood. Men cross paths and clash in duels that reveal the true nature of today’s Russia, lost in its imperial hallucination.

Episode 1: The New Barons

1990: After the fall of communism, Russia, advised by American economists, hurtles towards unbridled capitalism. It was shock therapy. At this time of chaos and violence, new players emerge, halfway between gangsters and businessmen. They influenced President Yeltsin and appropriated the country’s natural resources. They became known as the “oligarchs”. Their power was soon threatened by popular indignation. To protect themselves, they had to prepare Yeltsin’s successor and called in a bodyguard, a former KGB officer: Vladimir Putin. The oligarchs ensured his election as president in 2000. But they soon realised that this protection came at a price. The example of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the most flamboyant of them all, imprisoned and stripped of his oil company, Yukos, for tax evasion and money laundering, served as a warning to them: obey or lose everything. Putin becomes their undisputed leader.

Episode 2: The hunt

2012: Putin is re-elected. The Russian people see him as a saviour, a man of integrity ready to fight the oligarchs for the good of the nation. But this is just an illusion. In reality, he has created dark-cash purveyors, turning former KGB members into new oligarchs. The most important of these is Igor Setchine. It was he who took over Khodorkovsky’s company, Yukos. These new oligarchs use tax havens with the complicity of international financial institutions to hide their wealth. Setchine and Putin enjoy inexplicable opaque wealth, and trying to explain it can be dangerous. This cash is not only used to enrich them, it is also used for political influence. In particular, to support the European far right. This is money that must remain secret, invisible. For journalists and opposition activists, the challenge will be to expose it. A dangerous mission.