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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

The Putin paradox

From the US elections to Ukraine, Russian policy is having a greater impact on global affairs than at any time since the cold war. We scrutinise the man who has done more than anyone to shape those policies, and ask how someone so reviled in the west has been so successful at home

4 April 2017

  • People in Moscow attend a concert marking the third anniversary of Crimea’s reunification with Russia, 18 March 2017.

    Putin is part of a continuum that stretches back to the tsars

    Geoffrey Hosking
    In aggressively asserting his country’s strength, Putin wants Russia to regain its status among the great nations contesting power and wealth with one another

31 March 2017

  • George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev and John Major at a 1991 G7 summit

    Russia’s 1989 plea for a new world order was rejected, and so Putinism was born

    Richard Sakwa
    As the cold war ended, Mikhail Gorbachev wanted a new political community, with Russia as an equal partner. The west refused to countenance it

30 March 2017

  • Officers of Russia

    The arts thrive in Putin’s Russia – though they play a complex game of censorship

    Natalia Antonova
    Russia’s art scene prospers in a bizarre critical climate fostered by the Kremlin. We may not know the rules, but we know our place

28 March 2017

  • A flag with the portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin waves over the crowd during the Vesna (Sping) festival commemorating the annexation, in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, March 18, 2017. Residents of cities in Crimea and Russia held gatherings to commemorate the third anniversary of Russia's annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

    'A harsh but just ruler': what do Russians think about Putin?

    Eva Hartog and others
    One hundred years on from the revolution, six Russians give their views on Vladimir Putin and their country’s place in the world today

27 March 2017

  • Illustration by Jasper Rietman

    Russia is the house that Vladimir Putin built – and he’ll never abandon it

    Dmitri Trenin
    By co-opting the masses against the elite, the president has shaped a country to echo his values and grievances. And now he’s working to secure his legacy

25 March 2017

  • Pro-Russian forces move towards Donetsk , eastern Ukraine, in November 2014.

    Putin’s desire for a new Russian empire won’t stop with Ukraine

    Pavlo Klimkin
    My country has suffered terribly from the Kremlin’s obsession with restoring Soviet hegemony. But the entire security of Europe and the west is at stake

24 March 2017

  • TVs broadcasting a Putin press conference, Moscow, 2006.

    In Putin’s Russia, the hollowed-out media mirrors the state

    Alexey Kovalev
    The Russian government has spent years consolidating its control of the media. Now it sees reporters as public servants first and journalists second – if at all

23 March 2017

  • Shaun Walker

    In the broken-down heart of Siberia, Putin is still Russia’s ‘good tsar’

    Shaun Walker
  • RUSSIA-PUTIN-DOGS<br>This photo taken on March 24, 2013 shows Russin President Vladimir Putin as he plays with his dogs 'Buffy' (up) and 'Yume' at his residence Novo-Ogariovo, outside Moscow. Bulgarian shepherd dog 'Buffy' was presented to Putin by his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov while Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda offered Putin the puppy 'Yume' as a gift during the G20 in Mexico in June. AFP PHOTO / /RIA NOVOSTI / PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / ALEXEY DRUZHINYN (Photo credit should read Alexsey Druginyn/AFP/Getty Images)

    Why is Russia still in love with Putin? – video

22 March 2017

  • Yelena Mizulina

    Vladimir Putin has one reliable set of allies: Russia’s iron ladies

    Ekaterina Sokirianskaia
  • Russian military personnel surround a Ukrainian base in March 2014

    How annexing Crimea allowed Putin to claim he had made Russia great again

    Sophie Pinkham

21 March 2017

  • Barman surrounded by pictures of Putin, in the Putin pub in Chelyabinsk

    A thousand miles from Moscow: how Putin forged his Russian heartland

    Anne Garrels
    He may be reviled in the west but the president was a godsend in the desperate, dying old rustbelt towns
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