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00:00:00you are. Business on BBC News. Make
00:00:02Make the connection. MUSIC
00:00:13MUSIC On On BBC News. Sandra Maksimovic reports
00:00:16reports on Serbia's student led anti-corruption anti-corruption protests. Plus the
00:00:20the growing debate over AI safety.
00:00:23safety. Global Eye.
00:00:45Hello and welcome to Global Eye. A programme that brings you
00:00:49you hard hitting investigations and and tales of hope and resilience
00:00:53resilience from teams across the
00:00:55the BBC World Service. I'm Sandra
00:00:57Sandra Maksimovic and this week we
00:00:59we are in Serbia. The country is
00:01:02is split down the middle as student student protesters demand change
00:01:05change from a government they view view as corrupt and authoritarian.
00:01:09authoritarian. Which side will win win out in the upcoming elections?
00:01:13elections? Also coming up. The kind kind of dizzying rate of progress progress means that things that were
00:01:16were previously in the realms of of science fiction are now becoming
00:01:19becoming reality. Are the AI doomers doomers right about the risks of
00:01:23of digital Armageddon? We'll ask
00:01:25ask if there is still a path to a
00:01:28a safer AI future. And tracing Putin's
00:01:32Putin's rise from the streets of of Leningrad to the corridors of
00:01:35of the Kremlin. How did a little little known KGB officer become one
00:01:39one of the world's most powerful
00:01:42powerful leaders? These two messages
00:01:51messages are posted almost everywhere everywhere across Serbia. Students
00:01:55Students are winning and Serbia is is winning. Just one word is different,
00:01:59different, but it tells you a great great deal about this landlocked
00:02:03landlocked Balkan country. This is
00:02:05is a country used to divisions over
00:02:08over wars, nationalism, Russia, the
00:02:11the West. But nowadays it's not only
00:02:14only politics. Rousing heated debates
00:02:17debates between Serbians. It's the
00:02:18the reality they live in. The latest
00:02:23latest rupture began here at 1152
00:02:271152 on November 1st, 2024. A concrete
00:02:30concrete canopy collapsed at Novi
00:02:32Novi Sad railway station. 16 people
00:02:36people died. Shortly before the station
00:02:45station was renovated as part of
00:02:46of a Chinese led railway project
00:02:49project repeatedly celebrated by
00:02:51by President Aleksandar Vucic. Every
00:02:58Every day, people still block streets.
00:03:01streets. At 1152. 16 minutes. One
00:03:04One for every person who died. What
00:03:11What began with demands for accountability
00:03:14accountability for the canopy collapse
00:03:16collapse grew into a nationwide student
00:03:18student led movement. For the protesters, protesters, the collapse has become
00:03:22become a symbol of what they say
00:03:23say is a much bigger problem. Corruption,
00:03:28Corruption, secrecy and institutions institutions that fail to hold those
00:03:29those in power to account. The institutions
00:03:33institutions cannot perform their their duties and what is requested
00:03:36requested of them, what is their
00:03:38their duty? Because they're simply
00:03:41simply shackled by the regime, they they can't make a single decision decision unless the regime or the
00:03:45the government actually approves approves it. And therefore it is is simply impossible for them to
00:03:49to actually follow the law. The government
00:03:52government denies allegations of
00:03:55of corruption for months. Crowds
00:03:57Crowds filled streets and squares
00:03:59squares across Serbia. But this is
00:04:02is just one reality of Serbia. Here
00:04:06Here is another. The Serbian government
00:04:08government points to economic growth, growth, investment and building boom.
00:04:12boom. Belgrade will host the first
00:04:14first specialised expo ever held held in the Western Balkans. And
00:04:17And this massive construction site site is where the event will take
00:04:21take place. It is the image Serbia's
00:04:23Serbia's government wants to project
00:04:25project to the world. Ambitious,
00:04:27Ambitious, modern and open. The expo
00:04:29expo is meant to symbolise Vucic's
00:04:31Vucic's vision of Serbia as a nation
00:04:33nation with ties to all countries.
00:04:37countries. But there is a stark contrast. contrast. Next year Serbia wants
00:04:41wants the world to take part in its
00:04:43its expo celebrating culture and
00:04:45and music. But this year, one of
00:04:48of its best known cultural exports exports was missing from its traditional
00:04:52traditional home. Exit Festival was
00:04:54was born here out of a student movement
00:04:56movement opposed to then regime of
00:04:58of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic. So it was no surprise
00:05:02surprise that a quarter of a century century later, the festival gave
00:05:04gave its support to the new student student protest movement Serbia.
00:05:08Serbia. The whole world is watching. watching. Make some noise for the
00:05:12the students of Serbia. Ben Thompson.
00:05:18Thompson. But the silent punishment punishment soon came. Despite the
00:05:21the exit brought Serbia free titles titles for the best major European
00:05:25European festival and over 300 million
00:05:27million of euros in tourism economy.
00:05:30economy. After we supported the student
00:05:33student protests, we were practically practically forced to leave Serbia
00:05:37Serbia and we received various threats. threats. I even personally received
00:05:40received a threat from one of the
00:05:42the local heads of the Special Police Police forces that if we continue
00:05:46continue to support students that that they will turn the whole agency
00:05:49agency against me personally. So
00:05:52So our suppliers were being threatened, threatened, our sponsors were being
00:05:55being threatened, so there was no no option then to for a time being
00:05:59being leave Serbia. The festival's
00:06:01festival's departure was just one one of many changes Serbia has seen
00:06:05seen in its cultural landscape in
00:06:08in the past 18 months. We have instances
00:06:11instances of people being threatened, threatened, like their safety being
00:06:15being threatened, their families families being threatened, but also
00:06:19also people being prevented from
00:06:21from working their concerts, their
00:06:26their shows, their theatre plays
00:06:28plays being cancelled. International
00:06:32International watchdogs have accused accused the government of putting
00:06:35putting undue pressure on independent independent media organisations and
00:06:38and harassing opposition groups.
00:06:40groups. But he rejects the claims.
00:06:43claims. This is peace, stability
00:06:49stability and the best living standard standard so far that we delivered
00:06:52delivered to Serbian people. And
00:06:55And these are the facts. Serbia's
00:06:57Serbia's divide will soon face its
00:06:59its biggest test. Vujic stepped down
00:07:01down as president at the end of September September to seek the
00:07:09Seek the post of Prime Minister. Following the snap parliamentary parliamentary elections scheduled scheduled for October 25th. Which
00:07:12Which brings us back to these rival rival graffiti artists. Who is winning
00:07:16winning the students or Serbia? For For the people who painted these
00:07:19these messages, it looks like that
00:07:21that cannot be the same thing. This
00:07:25This information and foreign influence influence are familiar worries here
00:07:29here in Serbia, but artificial intelligence
00:07:31intelligence is changing the rules
00:07:33rules of the game. AI can create
00:07:36create increasingly realistic content content at a scale that was unimaginable
00:07:40unimaginable just a few years ago. ago. The immediate concern is what
00:07:44what that means for elections and
00:07:46and public trust here and around
00:07:48around the world. But some researchers
00:07:50researchers are looking much further
00:07:53further ahead and asking exactly exactly where this technology could
00:07:56could lead. Recent AI safety concerns
00:07:59concerns have been driven by stark
00:08:02stark warnings about the growing growing risks of the technology going
00:08:05going rogue. Could AI really wipe
00:08:08wipe out humans and how might it
00:08:10it do it? Cyber correspondent Joe
00:08:13Joe Tidy has been looking at some
00:08:15some of the scenarios. We've never
00:08:18never created beings that may soon soon be smarter than us. We don't
00:08:21don't know what's going to happen. It's a warning sign that
00:08:24that we need to slow down. That's That's what we're trying to do here here is we're trying to get ahead
00:08:27ahead of things that otherwise might might happen. I can't see any way
00:08:31way to really stop this incredible
00:08:33incredible momentum of AI and robots. It's not at all an exaggeration
00:08:36exaggeration to say that the people people who are involved believe there
00:08:39there is a possibility of human extinction. extinction. The warnings have ramped
00:08:42ramped up, but how could a superintelligent superintelligent AI that wanted to
00:08:46to take control of our world actually actually kill us all? Let's take
00:08:49take a look at some of the worst worst case scenarios that so-called
00:08:53so-called AI doomers are talking talking about, and assess how likely
00:08:56likely they are. One thing that the
00:08:58the recent AI outbreaks has shown shown us is that these AIS are now
00:09:02now very good at hacking. The kind kind of dizzying rate of progress progress means that things that were
00:09:06were previously in the realms of of science fiction are now becoming
00:09:08becoming reality. To give a concrete concrete example, AI is can hack.
00:09:12hack. They can hack into the sort sort of critical infrastructure that
00:09:16that the world runs on. The scary
00:09:18scary scenario here is that a rogue rogue AI might infiltrate the computer
00:09:22computer networks of internet providers, providers, energy grids, and even
00:09:25even nuclear power stations. The
00:09:27The AIS could shut it all down so so there's no electricity for humans,
00:09:31humans, no heating or cooling, no
00:09:33no internet connectivity. It could
00:09:35could cause untold chaos in some
00:09:38some imagined scenarios, nuclear nuclear catastrophes are possible.
00:09:41possible. Another doomsday scenario scenario is explored in great detail
00:09:45detail by AI researchers in a paper
00:09:47paper called AI 2027. What we sort sort of said happened in that scenario
00:09:51scenario was in 2027. So next year.
00:09:54year. AI is recursively self-improve self-improve and that snowballs to
00:09:56to an AI that has access to a large
00:10:00large number of robots, which are are doing most of the physical tasks
00:10:04tasks throughout the economy. Well, Well, I'll be you found that report report faster than my whole staff
00:10:07staff combined. Happy to help sir.
00:10:09sir. In the US as well as other governments governments worldwide are constantly
00:10:12constantly asking the CIA for advice. advice. However, unfortunately it's
00:10:15it's also not friendly and is out out for its own ends. And then eventually
00:10:18eventually what happens is it releases
00:10:20releases a bioweapon killing most most humans and it continues to run
00:10:24run the robot economy itself. And
00:10:26And so that resulted in human extinction. extinction. And another scary scenario
00:10:30scenario the end of humanity is a
00:10:32a mistake. The so-called paperclip paperclip maximiser hypothesis was
00:10:35was first imagined more than 20 years
00:10:37years ago. So in this thought experiment, experiment, it's a hypothetical AI
00:10:41AI that cares about making as many many paperclips as possible. It doesn't
00:10:45doesn't hate us or resent us humans, humans, but that's its sole goal.
00:10:48goal. And then from the pursuit of
00:10:50of that goal, it would have instrumental instrumental subgoals that might
00:10:53might include gaining more power, power, gaining more intelligence,
00:10:57intelligence, and then the thought thought is that a sufficiently powerful
00:11:01powerful entity would have instrumental instrumental subgoals that might
00:11:04might entail the destruction of humanity, humanity, because it could be making
00:11:07making more paperclips if there were were no humans around to stop it.
00:11:11it. And if nothing else, our bodies
00:11:12bodies are made of contain iron atoms atoms that could be transformed into
00:11:16into really nice paperclips. It's It's meant to illustrate this idea
00:11:18idea that you don't need some very
00:11:21very specific hostile goal in a sufficiently
00:11:24sufficiently powerful superintelligence superintelligence for it to pose pose a danger to humanity. Almost
00:11:27Almost any goal, unless it really really embeds in that goal a care
00:11:31care for humans. There is another another school of thought about AI
00:11:34AI safety, though guessing how and and why a superintelligent AI might
00:11:38might try and kill humans is futile.
00:11:41futile. If you imagine asking chimpanzees chimpanzees how exactly are these
00:11:44these humans going to make you extinct, extinct, they would have a very difficult
00:11:47difficult time answering because because what we do, they don't understand
00:11:51understand the discussion here has has to rest on the assumption that
00:11:55that once you create something that's that's much more intelligent than
00:11:57than humans, we simply no longer
00:11:59longer have a say in what
00:12:03happens. It all sounds very sci-fi, sci-fi, but there is an increasingly increasingly significant and loud
00:12:06loud group of AI scientists that
00:12:08that think something like this might might happen. It's so common that
00:12:11that in the AI world, people talk talk about their p doom. A common
00:12:14common percentage seems to be anywhere
00:12:18anywhere between 10 and 25%. Many Many people's probability of doom
00:12:21doom for humans seems to have risen
00:12:23risen after a recent spate of uncontrolled
00:12:26uncontrolled outbreaks and hacks
00:12:27hacks of AI agents from OpenAI Anthropic
00:12:30Anthropic and Meta. But some in the the cyber world are less worried
00:12:34worried and think the companies are
00:12:36are also to blame. And anything these
00:12:39these machines, these tireless, relentless, relentless, goal seeking, very capable
00:12:43capable machines, anything these
00:12:45these machines do is as a result result of how they've been built.
00:12:48built. And the bottom line is that
00:12:51that if you are a manufacturer of of technology, you should be designing
00:12:55designing and developing and testing
00:12:57testing and delivering your capability
00:13:00capability with security as the number number one priority. Other people
00:13:03people think that an out-of-control out-of-control AI poses a significant
00:13:07significant risk to humans, but not
00:13:09not extinction level. If AI actually
00:13:12actually did, you know, inflict heavy heavy losses on humanity if it even
00:13:15even wanted to, which is a big question.
00:13:18question. But if it did, humans would would fight back. We would take out out all the data centres, we'd be
00:13:22be blowing up power stations. So So like extinction, like so there's
00:13:25there's no humans left, no way for for us to rebuild. Like I just don't
00:13:29don't see it. We in the US are spending
00:13:31spending too much time focusing on on the extinction scenarios, which
00:13:35which make for great narrative, but but aren't the likely ones. You know,
00:13:38know, the likely ones are things things like power grids get hit in
00:13:42in the next several months. You know, know, because these tools can be
00:13:45be used for cyber hacking and will will be. So what's being done now
00:13:48now to reduce the risk of these bad
00:13:50bad AI outcomes? The researchers
00:13:53researchers behind AI 2027 published published a more optimistic view
00:13:55view of what they think could happen happen if things change. The plan
00:13:58plan calls for a slowdown in development development until safety measures
00:14:02measures and monitoring can improve. improve. It also calls for international
00:14:05international co-operation between between countries and companies to to build things like kill switches
00:14:09switches in data centres. Some of of these things are now being openly
00:14:13openly talked about alongside other other ideas. I'm very happy that
00:14:16that AI safety is sort of getting getting the attention that I think think it really needs. I'm hopeful
00:14:20hopeful that this sort of large societal
00:14:23societal outcry will result in sort sort of a useful policy response
00:14:27response that will actually reduce reduce the risk. In some ways, you
00:14:30you could say that these incidents incidents that have happened over
00:14:32over the past couple of months are
00:14:35are actually a blessing in disguise
00:14:37disguise as it's raised the consciousness
00:14:39consciousness around how we need
00:14:41need to ensure that these capabilities
00:14:43capabilities can't be used to perpetrate perpetrate massive cyber attacks
00:14:47attacks against our critical infrastructure, infrastructure, can't be used to
00:14:50to effectively create bioweapons bioweapons or chemical weapons or
00:14:54or radiological weapons. Now we should
00:14:56should all feel like we have the the responsibility to do something
00:15:00something about it. But getting an an international agreement in place
00:15:03place seems like a tall order right right now. With so much money and
00:15:06and geopolitical tension tied up up in AI. We don't want to restrict
00:15:09restrict them where all of a sudden sudden we come in second to China. For now, the so-called AI
00:15:13AI Doomers are hoping that the recent recent upswell of concern will be
00:15:16be enough to bring about change inside
00:15:20inside the industry. Historically,
00:15:24Historically, Serbia has been one
00:15:25one of Russia's closest allies in
00:15:28in Europe with their shared Slavic Slavic and Orthodox Christian heritage.
00:15:32heritage. The two countries have
00:15:33have maintained a strong relationship relationship for centuries and as
00:15:37as we have seen before, stepping stepping down President Vucic had
00:15:41had been keen to foster a warm personal
00:15:44personal friendship with his Russian Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
00:15:47Putin. According to one recent poll, poll, Serbia was the only country
00:15:50country in Europe where Putin had
00:15:52had a net positive favorability rating.
00:15:55rating. Putin's image has been tarnished
00:15:57tarnished by Russia's slide into into authoritarianism an invasion
00:16:01invasion of Ukraine. He is now one
00:16:03one of the most recognised people people in the world. But before he
00:16:07he took charge of Russia over 25
00:16:0925 years ago, he was a virtual unknown. unknown. Much of what we know about
00:16:13about his life before the Kremlin
00:16:15Kremlin comes from stories he repeatedly
00:16:18repeatedly tells about himself, from from a childhood spent chasing rats
00:16:21rats to the twist of fate that drew
00:16:24drew him into politics. The World World Service's global journalism
00:16:27journalism team have explored his his early years and what they can
00:16:30can teach us about the man behind
00:16:33behind the leader. This is Russian
00:16:42Russian President Vladimir Putin, Putin, long before the world knew
00:16:44knew his name. An unknown Mid-ranking
00:16:48Mid-ranking KGB officer who went went on to become one of the most
00:16:51most recognisable leaders on the
00:16:53the planet since he was first elected, elected, Putin has carefully crafted
00:16:56crafted the image of a macho, hyper
00:16:59hyper masculine strongman. But beyond
00:17:02beyond the photo ops lies another another curated self-portrait, one
00:17:05one made of anecdotes he often repeats
00:17:07repeats in interviews. Those messages messages are extremely important
00:17:11important not necessarily at face face value, but its symbolic value.
00:17:14value. What is it that he is trying trying to say? Here are three stories
00:17:18stories Putin returns to again and
00:17:20and again from his life before the
00:17:22the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin was born
00:17:26born in 1952 in Leningrad, now St
00:17:28St Petersburg, a city traumatised
00:17:31traumatised by the 872 day Nazi siege
00:17:33siege of World War II. Hundreds of
00:17:38of thousands died, including Putin's Putin's older brother. He says his
00:17:42his parents barely survived it. The
00:17:44The siege is the background condition condition for his childhood. It was
00:17:48was a city marked by scarcity, by
00:17:51by a profound sense of trauma and
00:17:53and loss and a deep fear of vulnerability.
00:17:56vulnerability. This is where he grew grew up a cramped communal apartment
00:18:00apartment with no hot water and a a shared toilet. It was a pretty
00:18:04pretty rough, hardscrabble existence existence and frankly, the young
00:18:07young Putin himself seemed to have have been a pretty rough, hardscrabble
00:18:10hardscrabble young, young kid. You You know, he was a bit of a scrapper.
00:18:14scrapper. Most of his childhood played played out in the divorce. The shared
00:18:18shared courtyard between apartment apartment blocks. The lesson of the the war culture taught him don't
00:18:21don't ever back down. Even though though you're smaller than a lot
00:18:24lot of the other boys. He started started wrestling and judo later
00:18:28later becoming a black belt. But But there's a particular anecdote
00:18:31anecdote he likes to recount about about his childhood and how he liked
00:18:34liked to chase rats. That was all
00:18:37all fun and games until at one point
00:18:39point he chased a particularly big
00:18:42big rat into a room from which there there was no exit, and realising
00:18:45realising that the rat turned and and was ready to spring and actually
00:18:48actually Putin himself ran. In first
00:18:52first person a book of interviews interviews published the year he
00:18:54he became president. He says he got
00:18:56got a quick and lasting lesson from from this experience. If you corner
00:19:00corner a rat and you leave it no
00:19:02no way out, they will fight with
00:19:04with unexpected ferocity, he says
00:19:06says he drew a conclusion from this this never be cornered and never
00:19:10never cornered anyone. Putin says
00:19:12says he dreamt of joining the KGB.
00:19:15KGB. The Soviet intelligence service.
00:19:22service. MUSIC
00:19:29MUSIC As As a teenager, he says he even turned
00:19:31turned up at their Leningrad headquarters headquarters asking for a job. But
00:19:34But they told him to go to university university and study law. And that's
00:19:38that's where they later recruited recruited him. He joins the KGB.
00:19:41KGB. Not really because of the ideological ideological dimension, but because
00:19:44because it seems to be the biggest
00:19:45biggest gang in town. He says his
00:19:48his job within the KGB was to gather gather information about political
00:19:51political opponents, finding out
00:19:53out who was doing what and how because
00:19:56because he spoke German fluently. fluently. He was posted to Dresden,
00:20:00Dresden, East Germany, in 1985. At At the time, the Soviet Union still
00:20:04still held enormous influence across
00:20:06across Eastern Europe. Putin was
00:20:10was still in Dresden as mass protests
00:20:12protests swept across East Germany Germany in late 1989, leading to
00:20:15to the fall of the Berlin Wall in
00:20:18in November. The following month,
00:20:21month, a crowd stormed the Dresden Dresden headquarters of the Stasi,
00:20:24Stasi, the feared East German secret
00:20:27secret police racing to stop the the destruction of files and evidence
00:20:30evidence as the regime was
00:20:34falling. The Stasi was basically basically finished that night. In
00:20:36In the book First Person, he recalls recalls how the crowd then turned
00:20:39turned against the KGB compound across
00:20:41across the road where Putin was watching.
00:20:44watching. So there he is in the KGB KGB compound when there's a crowd
00:20:48crowd of East Germans who clearly clearly identify the Soviets, the
00:20:51the KGB in particular as their oppressors.
00:20:53oppressors. Putin himself goes out out and confronts the crowd and says,
00:20:57says, look, there's a whole collection collection of soldiers inside with
00:21:00with weapons. If you come in, they
00:21:03they will have to fire. And he talks
00:21:05talks them down. That persuaded the
00:21:07the group to withdraw. But fearing fearing further unrest, Putin asked
00:21:10asked Moscow for back-up. The KGB
00:21:13KGB put in a panicked call to the the nearest Soviet garrison, saying
00:21:16saying we have a crowd here. We're We're going to have to send some
00:21:18some troops. And they say, look, look, we can't do anything unless
00:21:21unless we have orders. We need to
00:21:23to have orders from Moscow. And Moscow
00:21:26Moscow is silent. Though the Soviet
00:21:28Soviet Union didn't collapse until until 1991, Putin says he felt it
00:21:32it ended that day and it made a lasting
00:21:36lasting impression. Geopolitical
00:21:45Geopolitical catastrophe for the
00:21:46the 30 million. Territory. I think
00:21:52think that experience in Dresden Dresden shaped his obsession with
00:21:56with state strength, civil control
00:21:59control and preventing disorder. disorder. After Dresden, Putin stayed
00:22:03stayed on the KGB's books, but he he didn't have an official posting,
00:22:06posting, so he returned to Leningrad, Leningrad, started a PhD in mining
00:22:10mining economics and says in his his ghost written autobiography he
00:22:12he even considered a career in academia.
00:22:16academia. But his former law professor professor Anatoly Sobchak, who would
00:22:19would soon become the mayor of Leningrad, Leningrad, offered him a job that
00:22:22that would change his life. That's
00:22:25That's how he quietly entered the
00:22:27the world of politics. Often unnoticed,
00:22:30unnoticed, he sat right by Sobchak
00:22:32Sobchak for years. You can see him
00:22:35him here or even here. At the time,
00:22:38time, no one was paying much attention attention to the man in the brown
00:22:41brown coat. It was actually through
00:22:44through the chaotic 1990s that in in many ways he really found his
00:22:48his genuine talents and his talents
00:22:51talents in, in the 1990s were essentially
00:22:54essentially to be everyone's favourite favourite bagman. Everyone's favourite
00:22:58favourite deputy, the guy who can can get things done unobtrusively.
00:23:02unobtrusively. He says his time there there was some of the most formative
00:23:05formative years of his career. It's It's a small anecdote that Putin
00:23:09Putin tells, and he repeatedly highlights highlights above all others, and
00:23:13and that is that Sobchak had such such personal trust in him that he
00:23:16he gave him a stack of blank signed
00:23:21signed papers, as he calls them blank
00:23:24blank signed letters. So he was authorised
00:23:27authorised to act in the mayor's mayor's name. That experience shaped
00:23:31shaped Putin's view of power as something
00:23:34something personal, loyal and indivisible. indivisible. And that lesson stayed
00:23:38stayed with him long after the Sobchak
00:23:40Sobchak years. To this day, he is is still surrounded by many of the
00:23:43the people he met during his time time in the mayor's office. After
00:23:47After Sobchak lost an election, Putin Putin moved to Moscow to join the
00:23:50the Kremlin. In the dying years of of President Boris Yeltsin's administration,
00:23:53administration, he rose up the ranks ranks fast. In 1998, he became the
00:23:57the head of the new Intelligence Intelligence and security Service,
00:24:00Service, the FSB. A year later, Prime Prime Minister. The so-called family,
00:24:03family, the people around Yeltsin Yeltsin were beginning to look for
00:24:07for a successor, someone who they
00:24:10they thought could be controllable controllable and could be efficient.
00:24:13efficient. Yeltsin's inner circle circle ensured Putin took charge
00:24:16charge when Yeltsin stepped down, down, but to most Russians he was
00:24:20was still a mystery man. Putin really
00:24:22really hadn't struck the public imagination imagination that much. And therefore,
00:24:26therefore, when he became first Prime Prime Minister but then certainly certainly president, there was a
00:24:29a sense of who is this man? Which Which of course was very useful Putin,
00:24:32Putin, because it more or less meant
00:24:34meant that he had a blank
00:24:38slate. It's on that blank slate that that Putin built the image of the the leader we know today, a man who
00:24:42who went from the streets of Leningrad
00:24:44Leningrad to Russia's top job in
00:24:46in control of the country for more
00:24:48more than 25 years, he has become become increasingly authoritarian.
00:24:52authoritarian. I think the pro-Kremlin pro-Kremlin years tell us a great
00:24:55great deal about Putin's operating
00:24:58operating instincts, but those years
00:25:00years are not deterministic biography
00:25:03biography alone, I don't think, explains explains Putin's choices across his
00:25:06his career. His time in power has
00:25:08has also been shaped by wars, economic
00:25:11economic crises and repeated clashes clashes with the West. But from the
00:25:15the stories he tells, we can get
00:25:16get a glimpse into his mindset. Putin's
00:25:19Putin's childhood in post-war Leningrad, Leningrad, his KGB training, the
00:25:23the events in Dresden, the chaos
00:25:25chaos of the 1990s. Clearly, I think,
00:25:27think, instilled deep instincts in in Putin about vulnerability, loyalty
00:25:31loyalty and the dangers of state
00:25:33state collapse. Thank you for joining
00:25:41joining me in Serbia. We'll be back
00:25:42back next week. Goodbye.
00:28:08fair elections in the world's largest largest democracy. Join me Azadeh Azadeh Moshiri for our continuing
00:28:12continuing coverage on BBC News.
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00:30:14Live from London. This is BBC
00:30:16News. 12 people are killed and hundreds
00:30:20hundreds injured in a missile attack attack on Riyadh's international international airport, which Saudi
00:30:24Saudi authorities blame on the
00:30:28Houthis. The Saudis are good fighters, fighters, but I think the attack
00:30:30attack was a terrible thing. President President Trump says Ukraine needs
00:30:34needs a new president who can make make a deal after President Zelensky's
00:30:38Zelensky's criticism over the US., US., Russia diesel deal. A man is
00:30:42is mauled to death at a wildlife wildlife park in Yorkshire after
00:30:45after entering the tiger enclosure.
00:30:49enclosure. And Hurricane Simon heads heads for Mexico, bringing torrential
00:30:52torrential rain and winds of up to
00:30:55to 240km an hour.