This post was originally published on this site
This two-part “Frontline” film on Vladimir Putin’s life and career begins with a scene at once moving, ominous and very Russian. Here is President Boris Yeltsin, who yearned to bring democracy to Russia, making an announcement that he’s resigning—and that he asks forgiveness because so many of the dreams of the Russian people had not come true, because he had not succeeded, because he was now tired and had to leave.
People wept. And for his final act as president, the film reminds us, Yeltsin, father of Russian democracy,…