Thank you for listening to this episode of Old Newscast on BBC Sounds. Don't forget to subscribe to Newscast if you haven't done so already so that you never miss an episode.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is the second episode of Old Newscast on the first election of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia on the 27th of March in the year 2000.

On the first episode, I was chatting to the BBC Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg,

and Russia reporter for the Washington Post, Catherine Belton.

We discussed how the instability in Russia in the 1990s,

and then the surprise resignation of Boris Yeltsin led to the rise of

Vladimir Putin, from unknown KGB officer to grey bureaucrat to the most powerful man in Russia.

In this episode, we'll look at some of the key moments of Putin's time as president.

Of course, some of that time he was actually serving as prime minister.

More on that later. We'll also look at how life in Russia has changed over the 25 years of his

leadership and that widening gap between Russia and the West. And of course, we will touch on the

war in Ukraine. But we will restart the story just after Vladimir Putin has been inaugurated as Russian

President, the second person to hold that job, and that's in May 2000.

Newscast. Newscast from the BBC.

Vladimir Vladimir Putin!

When we welcome you here, Vladimir, we do so as a friend and a partner.

I wouldn't have invited him to my ranch if I didn't trust him. Evil cannot be trusted. Ask pregogeon. I said, don't do it, Vladimir. Don't do it, Vladimir. Hello, it's Adam in the old newscast studio. And still with us is the BBC's Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg. Hi, Steve. Hi, Adam. And here in the studio is Russia reporter for the Washington Post and author Catherine Belton. Hi, Catherine. Hey, thanks for having me. So, Putin has been elected, although I feel I should use air quotes around that because we were discussing just exactly how the election worked in the previous episode. He's in office. He's had his big inauguration. He's swaggered down the red carpet, the very long red carpet.

And Catherine, I mean, straight away or very early on, there's a crisis and it's to do with a submarine called the Kursk.

Yes. You know, well, I think Putin has been president only for a couple of months.

It's August.

He's at his presidential retreat in Sochi.

And all of a sudden, yeah, you have one of the country's nuclear submarines,

...