[ chanting ] all of east germany, angry crowds lashed out on the streets. that night in dresden, they found a target. the local kgb headquarters. a mob surrounded the building, as the hour grew later, the crowd grew larger. inside, peering through the curtains was a young kgb lieutenant colonel named vladimir putin. he was terrified they were going to storm the building. putin was a junior officer, but the boss was away. he was in charge. the berlin wall had come down, police weren t going to help. he called for instruction. desperate for help, putin dialed kgb headquarters in moscow, over and over again. finally, one official told him simply, moscow is silent. i think it felt like a deep betrayal to him. vladimir putin was on his own. he went down into the bowels of the building and fired up the furnace. he finds himself in the basement, at a furnace shoveling documents, as he hears protests on the street. they were filing so many documents, that the furnace was
new freedoms, capitalism, western values. it all looked great from the west. to vladimir putin, it was a catas catastrophe. he views the breakup of the soviet unity, as he said himself, to be the greatest gop political tragedy of the 20th century. but it wasn t just geography to putin. the breakup he said for millions of russians away from the country they loved, a country in which they belonged. tenning of millions of russians, russian speakers were, quote, unquote, abandoned, ripped away from us. it didn t have to be. the soviet union was our common past. the most painful separation for putin. of all of the former parts of