To anyone that forgets it, the irradiated head of Alexander Litvinenko is an eternal reminder: woe to anyone who defies the House of Russia. Masters in the art of using poison, Russians have made it a key weapon in their strategic arsenal. Over the past twenty years, several high-profile cases have made their mark. What goes on behind the scenes as they take shape sheds light on the relationship between the Kremlin and the West. Behind each of these cases, there is a tug of war, with major diplomatic and geostrategic issues. Struggles for influence, attacks on the integrity of the empire and its energy resources, each poisoning reveals the underside of a formidable game of chess in the line of the Cold War, and lays the foundations of what has been played out since the beginning of the conflict with Ukraine. To retrace this history, four cases deserve to be explored, each with different methods, stakes and power relations, but which give the whole a curious coherence.
2006 – Alexander Litvinenko (deceased)
2015-2017 – Vladimir Kara-Murza (imprisoned in 2022)
2018 – Sergei Skripal (disappeared)
2020 – Alexei Navalny (imprisoned in 2022)
Behind each of these poisonings unfolds a whole section of Russian strategy to regain its former power and impose its interests in the international game. And a whole section of the tensions, dissensions and agreements of the Western countries to try to contain the Kremlin’s growing appetite for supreme power.
This film, conceived in three parts, is based on a long investigation carried out with the contribution of the protagonists themselves, of the British judge who designated Vladimir Putin as being behind the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, of former people close to Vladimir Putin himself, of the best specialists on Russia, in Europe and in the United States, and of leading actors in international diplomacy.
This series tells how for twenty years, at the cost of a few grams of lethal poison, the Kremlin has entrenched its positions in the world game. And how if it is not stopped in its expansionism, it always pushes its advantage. Up to the limit, the war unleashed in February 2022, and the sanctions that followed, direct consequences of the dangerous game that Vladimir Putin had imposed on his partners and opponents for twenty years.
Episode Two – The New Cold War
The list of people believed to have been poisoned on Putin’s orders goes on and on. For twenty years, Russian poison has run through the veins of international diplomacy.
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The list of people believed to have been poisoned on Putin’s orders goes on and on. For twenty years, Russian poison has run through the veins of international diplomacy.
More info
The list of people believed to have been poisoned on Putin’s orders goes on and on. For twenty years, Russian poison has run through the veins of international diplomacy.
More info