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Join us for a screening of an episode of Putin vs The West, the BBC's new documentary studying Russia's leader. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session - guests to be announced.
This episode takes us up to the moment Putin launches his invasion of Ukraine and reveals how Western leaders try to stop him. From the Salisbury poisonings to clashes with Donald Trump over nuclear missiles, and fiery rhetoric aimed at NATO, Russia's President ramps up his aggression.
Theresa May remembers how she mobilised the international community against the use of chemical weapons on British soil. The Head of the CIA, Bill Burns, recounts his secret mission to Moscow to deliver a stark warning to Putin that US Intelligence was on to his plan to invade Ukraine; Boris Johnson remembers how he got the Russian President “on the blower” to try and talk him down; and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tells of the last-ditch diplomatic efforts to avert war: “We worked to the very end to try to convince them to change their plans, until the tanks were rolling and the planes were flying.”
The episode ends on the night of 24 February 2022, as Russia’s missiles strike Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky remembers waking in the middle of the night as his wife asks him how to tell the children: “what should I say?”