Old Newscast: Vladimir Putin elected Russian president for the first time, 2000 (Part 1)

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of Old Newscast, we look at how an unknown bureaucrat with a mysterious past unexpectedly rose to president of Russia.

Adam is joined by the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, and Russia reporter for The Washington Post and author, Catherine Belton.

They discuss how chaos in Russia in the 1990s allowed Putin’s rise to power, Boris Yeltsin’s surprise resignation and why Putin refused to campaign.

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Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC.

It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Joe Wilkinson with Miranda Slade, and Kris Jalowiecki. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you're about to listen to old newscast. This is our new style of podcast where we take a big moment from recent history and give it the newscast treatment, almost as if it's happening in the news now.
0:12.7	And then we do a second episode where we look at the ripples that came out of that moment and what the consequences were further down the line.
0:20.7	And part one of each series
0:21.8	will be available on Saturdays wherever you get your podcasts, with part two available on Sundays,
0:28.2	only on BBC Sounds.
0:31.0	BBC Sounds Music, radio podcasts.
0:34.7	Hello, we've got another episode of Old Newscast for you. And in this episode, we will be looking back at the 27th of March in the year 2000. That was the day that we found out that Vladimir Putin had been elected president of Russia for the first time. So in terms of what was going on, Putin was going to become Russia's second president since the fall of the Soviet Union.
0:56.6	Its first had been Boris Yeltsin, who'd been in office for eight years by that point and then resigned quite dramatically on the eve of the millennium.
1:05.9	And in terms of what had been happening in those eight years, Russia had seen huge, massive instability. And we also saw
1:13.3	the rise of these oligarchs, people who became very, very rich on the basis of the nation's
1:18.6	resources. And we'd also seen several secessionist wars in places like Chechnya and
1:24.0	Dagestan. And given how much time we spend talking about Putin in today's news, and
1:29.3	I expect we'll have an episode of Newscast for you fairly soon about his expected meeting with
1:33.5	Donald Trump, it was actually very interesting for me to talk about his early career and his
1:39.4	background and where he came from and his rise. So those are some of the things you will hear in this episode of Newscast.
1:46.8	Newscast from the BBC.
1:49.6	Vladimir Vladimir Putin.
1:52.0	When we welcome you here, Vladimir, we do so as a friend and a partner.
1:56.8	I wouldn't have invited him to my ranch if I didn't trust him.
1:59.4	Evil cannot be trusted. Ask pre-Gosian.
2:03.3	I said, don't do it, Vladimir. Don't do it, Vladimir.
2:08.6	Hello, it's Adam in the old newscast studio.
	...

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