:00:00. > :00:17.This The West faces a new threat from an
:00:18. > :00:22.enemy from the past of The West faces a new threat from an
:00:23. > :00:27.responsible for the violence in The West faces a new threat from an
:00:28. > :00:32.Ukraine. . Ukrainians, Russians and now Dutch, Malaysians and British
:00:33. > :00:37.too. We ask all respective governments to bring to justice all
:00:38. > :00:42.these bustards who committed these international crime. The fear is,
:00:43. > :00:49.could this man start a wider conflict? Putin became a war
:00:50. > :00:55.president and now he cannot back track. He cannot make Tonight, we
:00:56. > :00:59.confront peace. Vladimir Putin. I'd like to ask you a question about the
:01:00. > :01:01.war, Sir? I'm sorry, Sir, the killings in the Ukraine, thousands
:01:02. > :01:04.dead, do you regret the killings in killings in the Ukraine, thousands
:01:05. > :01:07.the Ukraine? No sooner was killings in the Ukraine, thousands
:01:08. > :01:11.ceasefire was declared, it broke down. It's the innocent who pay the
:01:12. > :01:49.This war has price. Little Roman
:01:50. > :01:52.This war has ago, the first shots.
:01:53. > :02:04.This war has day, 51 Ukrainians were gunned down.
:02:05. > :02:17.Snipe rs day, 51 Ukrainians were gunned down.
:02:18. > :02:17.emerged in Kiev. The Kremlin's day, 51 Ukrainians were gunned down.
:02:18. > :02:26.response? To stir up rebellion day, 51 Ukrainians were gunned down.
:02:27. > :02:28.Russia sees what it's doing as defensive. There's no country closer
:02:29. > :02:33.Russia sees what it's doing as to them than Ukraine. It's sort of
:02:34. > :02:36.Scotland to their England. Enter a ghost
:02:37. > :02:42.Scotland to their England. Enter a stripped of anything that might
:02:43. > :02:44.identify them occupied Crimea. They were Russian troops. Mr Putin was
:02:45. > :03:12.quick to justify his action. TRANSLATION: Putin has a maniacal
:03:13. > :03:17.fear of the possibility of you're's collapse. He fears it so much that
:03:18. > :03:28.he throws himself in the opposite direction when he senses a threat.
:03:29. > :03:34.In Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, many took to the streets, angry
:03:35. > :03:39.about Kiev's shift to the West. But the rebellion was faltering. Enter
:03:40. > :03:49.the Kremlin's ghost army. TRANSLATION: The original idea of
:03:50. > :03:56.those who started this war was that the people would rise up, but they
:03:57. > :04:00.didn't. Volunteers came from Russia and some local people took up arms
:04:01. > :04:08.to defend their homeland, but the numbers just weren't there.
:04:09. > :04:21.The ghost army kept the rebellion going. To date, the war has cost
:04:22. > :04:37.3,000 lives. Welcome to Novo Rossiya, New Russia, an idea
:04:38. > :04:42.promoted by Vladimir Putin. This is Donetsk, the capital of rebel-held
:04:43. > :04:50.Ukraine. Government barely functions, if at all. The panic war
:04:51. > :04:54.brings has come here too. This will give you an example of
:04:55. > :04:57.what's happening. We've just heard a muffled explosion. There are reports
:04:58. > :05:08.of a shootout at the railway station. The Ukrainian army are at
:05:09. > :05:16.the city gates. People take shelter in Donetsk railway station.
:05:17. > :05:22.The situation is the Ukrainian Army is three kilometres that way and
:05:23. > :05:25.people are terrified there's going to be an enormous battle here. We're
:05:26. > :05:34.right underneath the railway station and people are leaving. Somebody has
:05:35. > :05:43.just fired, one of the rebels. And the situation sown tire chaotic. --
:05:44. > :05:48.situation is entirely chaotic. That day, several people were killed.
:05:49. > :05:57.Much of the city stayed intact and life carried on. Later, the
:05:58. > :06:08.Ukrainian Army targeted a rebel base in town, but they missed. Shrapnel
:06:09. > :06:13.hit the maternity hospital. We just heard a crumb p of artillery,
:06:14. > :06:17.distant, not that close, but nevertheless, people, the patients
:06:18. > :06:20.and some of the staff have run down here to the basement, because it's
:06:21. > :06:26.the safest place in the whole hospital.
:06:27. > :06:31.What kind of world is the next generation being born into? Many
:06:32. > :06:55.here are little love for Ukraine's new president, Poroshenko.
:06:56. > :07:00.The laundry in this part of the basement now serves as the premature
:07:01. > :07:15.baby unit. This has become a media war and Mr
:07:16. > :07:53.Putin is fanning the flames. This is Donetsk last month. This is
:07:54. > :08:00.not the Nazi siege of Leningrad or anything like it.
:08:01. > :08:04.TRANSLATION: The huge naivety of Russians has been used by those who
:08:05. > :08:08.have spread this war. The people want justice. They've been told that
:08:09. > :08:12.it will be just if we beat the fascist and they believed in it. But
:08:13. > :08:20.it turned out to be a bloody Civil War of brother killing brother.
:08:21. > :08:29.Putin's war has been massively pop particular Russia -- popular in
:08:30. > :08:37.Russia. Alexander Dugin, a Nationalist who has the Kremlin's
:08:38. > :08:41.ear, explains why. The Russian population, the majority is inclined
:08:42. > :08:47.towards nationalism and towards empire, towards a powerful you're
:08:48. > :08:55.and Putin could not ignore that. Putin has no possibility to go out
:08:56. > :09:02.from this game, because he will immediately lose any support. One
:09:03. > :09:09.Russian opinion poll gave Putin an approval rating of 82%. On the
:09:10. > :09:16.ground in Ukraine, these chaps give him an even higher endorsement. Do
:09:17. > :09:22.you trust the word of Mr Putin? TRANSLATION: He's our president and
:09:23. > :09:28.we're proud of him. He's a great person, I'm serious. I'm honestly
:09:29. > :09:34.ready to die for him. These rebels come from Stalin's neck of the
:09:35. > :09:36.woods. Do you think Stalin was a good guy?
:09:37. > :09:40.TRANSLATION: Stalin? Stalin was a man. Putin is smaller than Stalin,
:09:41. > :09:56.but he's OK. He has everything ahead of him.
:09:57. > :10:10.This isn't Putin's first war. It's his third. First there was Chechnya,
:10:11. > :10:13.then Georgia. And now Ukraine. Its new government is rubbing shoulders
:10:14. > :10:17.with the West, another separation Russia cannot bear.
:10:18. > :10:24.The sun may be shining, buffer don't be fooled. Here in Moscow, the
:10:25. > :10:29.citadel of Vladimir Putin's power, things are getting chillier by the
:10:30. > :10:32.day. TRANSLATION: He probably isn't going
:10:33. > :10:41.to do anything monstrous, but he's the only limit to that. There's not
:10:42. > :10:45.a single person, nor a single institution, that can limit Putin.
:10:46. > :10:53.He's the commander in chief and the only limit. Gleb Pavlosky used to be
:10:54. > :11:02.Putin's spin doctor. Now he fears Putin is spinning out of control.
:11:03. > :11:06.TRANSLATION: Putin is, by nature, a serious gambler. For a gambler,
:11:07. > :11:10.success is precisely where the greatest danger lies. This leads to
:11:11. > :11:24.more gambling. In the long run, the casino beats even the most
:11:25. > :11:27.experienced player. By mid-July the rebels were losing, in part because
:11:28. > :11:34.the government had an Air Force and they didn't. In Snezhnoye,
:11:35. > :11:41.Ukrainians targeted a rebel base, but the bombs fell on this apartment
:11:42. > :11:53.block. Did the Kremlin send a big antiaircraft weapon across the
:11:54. > :12:00.border to even up the odds? One, two, three, four, five, six... Was
:12:01. > :12:07.this the moment when Putin's gamble went horribly wrong and a passenger
:12:08. > :12:11.jet was shot down by mistake? MH17 came from the West, where the sun is
:12:12. > :12:18.setting over there, from Amsterdam. Here we are in the eastern Ukraine,
:12:19. > :12:26.headed east for Malaysia and bang. And the lives of nearly 300 people
:12:27. > :12:30.were skinning wished. -- were extinguished. Amongst the dead 193
:12:31. > :12:42.Dutch, 43 Malaysians, 27 Australians, and ten Britons.
:12:43. > :12:49.The debris is strewn across ten miles in rebel-held territory.
:12:50. > :12:55.Another site, more wreckage. Here, the engines and the wheels came to
:12:56. > :13:01.rest. You can't see it but this whole place stinks of aviation fuel.
:13:02. > :13:08.It stinks of the dead. This is a monstrous crime. Truth is a stranger
:13:09. > :13:15.to these killing fields. In a war fought by ghost soldiers, lies stack
:13:16. > :13:19.up like the carpss. But -- corpses, but who is responsible for this?
:13:20. > :13:25.Some people say that man is in the Kremlin.
:13:26. > :13:31.After the Boeing crashed, the Russians said it was shot down by a
:13:32. > :13:34.Ukrainian fighter jet. Here in Moscow, a Russian general briefs the
:13:35. > :14:00.world. So, did a Ukrainian fighter shoot
:14:01. > :14:04.down MH17? What's left of the fuselage provides a major clue. They
:14:05. > :14:11.all show large number of these small holes. That, to me, says blast
:14:12. > :14:15.fragmentation warhead. The fragments are designed to puncture the
:14:16. > :14:19.aircraft structure. It's like a shotgun basically.
:14:20. > :14:24.A missile from a jet fighter would have blasted a big hole. This
:14:25. > :14:25.shrapnel damage points to a Soviet Designed missile launcher called a
:14:26. > :14:38.BUK. But the prime suspects were the
:14:39. > :14:50.rebels. Alexander Borodai I was their self-styled Prime Minister.
:14:51. > :14:59.Is this true? It matters because most Russians believe him. We set
:15:00. > :15:06.out to investigate exactly what happened to MH17. And that is not
:15:07. > :15:14.easy in a war zone. This is the road out of Zhures, east of Donetsk. We
:15:15. > :15:18.are deep in rebel held territory. This footage was filmed on the
:15:19. > :15:25.outskirts of town. In the video, you can see the BUK missile launch on a
:15:26. > :15:34.road. In the foreground there is a blue box and a pillar. Luvox,
:15:35. > :15:39.pillar. -- blue box. We believe that the BUK came along this road,
:15:40. > :15:44.tracking East. The rebel denial is further undermined by this image,
:15:45. > :15:53.taken ten miles from the crash site. It shows a low loader with red
:15:54. > :15:57.ramps, going up this hill. On it, a BUK anti-aircraft missile launcher.
:15:58. > :16:05.That missile launcher went up this hill. Both images were distributed
:16:06. > :16:09.by the Ukrainian government. Could they be fake? We spoke to two
:16:10. > :16:17.eyewitnesses who were in the next town along that day. They feared
:16:18. > :16:23.being identified. TRANSLATION: We saw it being off-loaded and when the
:16:24. > :16:30.BUK started the engine, the exhaust smoke filled the whole town square.
:16:31. > :16:36.Would accrue local? They had pure Russian accents. They say the letter
:16:37. > :16:40.G different to us. Both eyewitnesses believed that the BUK crew were
:16:41. > :16:46.Russian. One said a soldier spoke with a Moscow Askham. This is the
:16:47. > :16:49.first time that the crew have been potentially identified as Russian,
:16:50. > :16:54.and that means the Kremlin has questions to answer. Two hours
:16:55. > :17:02.later, at 4:20pm, locals heard two bangs. MH17 disappeared off the
:17:03. > :17:09.radar screen. There is more. This disputed image shows the BUK at dawn
:17:10. > :17:14.the next day, apparently heading towards Russia with one warhead
:17:15. > :17:18.missing. The Russians felt the need to step up their support for the
:17:19. > :17:20.dissidents. Material is no doubt coming across, including, more than
:17:21. > :17:32.likely, the BUK missile. Ukrainian intelligence, their
:17:33. > :17:42.version of MI5, have their own theory. They invited Panorama into
:17:43. > :17:48.their Kiev HQ. They suspect this was a plot to shoot down a Russian
:17:49. > :17:55.passenger jets to give Mr Putin a pretext for invading Ukraine. If the
:17:56. > :18:01.BUK launcher was stationed here, was deployed to this position, it would
:18:02. > :18:05.have a clear vision of the Aeroflot coming. If they launched a missile
:18:06. > :18:07.from this place, the plane could crash somewhere on the territory
:18:08. > :18:15.that was controlled by the Ukrainian army. We know for sure that Russians
:18:16. > :18:20.were ready to invade that night. You are seriously suggesting that MH17
:18:21. > :18:28.was shot down by mistake because the Russians meant to shut -- shoot down
:18:29. > :18:35.one of their own civilian airliners? It looks like. It appears like that.
:18:36. > :18:41.Has Putin's gambling led to this? That he is now such a bogeyman to
:18:42. > :18:48.some that the unthinkable becomes all too thinkable? But the
:18:49. > :18:51.explanation that best fits the evidence is that the BUK crew
:18:52. > :18:56.thought they were firing at a Ukrainian military plane and they
:18:57. > :19:04.got it wrong. In war, mistakes are made. What Putin did next was to
:19:05. > :19:11.reshuffle his cards. The leaders of the rebellion,'s and "Defence
:19:12. > :19:21.Minister Strelkov" were sent home to Moscow. The new rebel leader,
:19:22. > :19:27.Alexander Zakharchenko, also echoes the party line. TRANSLATION: We have
:19:28. > :19:32.no capability to shoot down aircraft at such high altitude, not at all.
:19:33. > :19:39.How did he explain photos of the BUK one rebel territory. That is a BUK,
:19:40. > :19:42.isn't it? If you are so knowledgeable about the systems, you
:19:43. > :19:46.will know better. Looking at this picture, I would say this is the
:19:47. > :19:54.back of a truck with some unknown equipment and a missile launcher. At
:19:55. > :19:58.last, an admission of sorts. Tomorrow, the Dutch Safety Board
:19:59. > :20:07.will announce its initial findings into the downing of MH17.
:20:08. > :20:17.Putin's next move was to paint hundreds of green army lorries
:20:18. > :20:25.white, and baptise them an aid convoy. This so-called humanitarian
:20:26. > :20:29.convoy was a classic from instant. It exemplifies the way in which
:20:30. > :20:32.Russia has nixed conventional military conflict with what we might
:20:33. > :20:36.call information warfare, confusing public relations stunts which
:20:37. > :20:41.distract western attention, model the story and make people think it
:20:42. > :20:46.is rather complicated, I'd rather not pay attention. These graves are
:20:47. > :20:49.part of the new battle ground in the info war. Here lie Russian soldiers
:20:50. > :20:54.who are thought to have died in Ukraine. The dates they died, August
:20:55. > :21:03.the 19th and the 20th of this year, point to them being Ghost Army. The
:21:04. > :21:07.whole war, the Russian war in Ukraine, the undeclared war, the
:21:08. > :21:13.so-called hybrid war, is based on falsification. This is probably the
:21:14. > :21:15.perfect case of falsification on the part of the Kremlin. This video was
:21:16. > :21:31.shot from a Ukrainian bus. This armoured column was filmed, it
:21:32. > :21:39.seems, not far from the Russian border inside Ukraine.
:21:40. > :21:47.The view from the back of the bus shows pretty
:21:48. > :21:47.The view from the back of the bus This, and other
:21:48. > :21:49.The view from the back of the bus shifted the military position
:21:50. > :21:59.dramatically. shifted the military position
:22:00. > :22:08.The game changer on the front line retreat.
:22:09. > :22:17.The game changer on the front line was not
:22:18. > :22:28.invaded, how would the West replied? -- reply?
:22:29. > :22:33.The answer came at a NATO summit in Wales. Tougher sanctions, but
:22:34. > :22:46.militarily Ukraine was on its own. Mikhail Khodorkovsky is underwhelmed
:22:47. > :22:50.by the West's response. Once Russia's richest man, he crossed Mr
:22:51. > :22:55.Putin and spent ten years behind bars. TRANSLATION: The West has
:22:56. > :23:02.clearly bars. TRANSLATION: The West has
:23:03. > :23:07.it is wheat -- knows that and will continue taking
:23:08. > :23:17.advantage of it. knows that and will continue taking
:23:18. > :23:21.substantial? It could, if the Western political
:23:22. > :23:29.substantial? It could, if the thinking more strategically. I
:23:30. > :23:36.substantial? It could, if the as if the gamble
:23:37. > :23:38.substantial? It could, if the divided West at every turn. I think
:23:39. > :23:39.substantial? It could, if the Putin has switched from chest to
:23:40. > :23:44.poker. The long-term aims are the same as they have always been. To
:23:45. > :23:45.bust the West, established Russian sway and domination over the former
:23:46. > :23:50.empire, to sway and domination over the former
:23:51. > :23:55.America. But he has certainly raised the stakes.
:23:56. > :23:59.America. But he has certainly raised fed up with Putin, but there are
:24:00. > :24:09.other points on the campus. -- compass. The Kremlin road show has
:24:10. > :24:14.come to Yakutsk in Siberia, six time zones east from Moscow, to launch a
:24:15. > :24:18.multi billion pounds gas deal with the Chinese. After the first round
:24:19. > :24:20.of Western sanctions started to bite, Putin announced a new pipeline
:24:21. > :24:45.to China. Russia is turning It is a signal to the West. But some
:24:46. > :24:46.people are still eager to do business with Russia, come what
:24:47. > :24:56.may. Before he was locked up, Mikhail
:24:57. > :25:13.Khodorkovsky went head to head with Mr Putin. What makes Vladimir Putin
:25:14. > :25:18.tick? Is he rational? He's changed a lot, he used to be more rational.
:25:19. > :25:24.Now many of his actions depend on emotion. And that does not bode
:25:25. > :25:28.well. The prospect of democratic change of power in Russia does not
:25:29. > :25:32.exist any more. The country is already paying in blood for the lack
:25:33. > :25:35.of political change and there will be more blood in future. Here, Mr
:25:36. > :25:47.Putin is treated like an emperor. I wanted to challenge him about his
:25:48. > :25:54.absolute denial of involvement in the war. John Sweeney, from the
:25:55. > :25:58.BBC. I'd like to ask you a question about the war, sir. I'm sorry, sir,
:25:59. > :26:05.the killings in Ukraine. Thousands of dead, Ukrainian, Russian,
:26:06. > :26:07.Malaysian, British, Dutch. So, sir, do you regret the killings in
:26:08. > :26:42.Ukraine? Mr Putin knows how to spirit away a
:26:43. > :26:53.tough question. He is, after all, the general of the Ghost Army.
:26:54. > :27:01.But what are the Russians doing, sir? There is a question about what
:27:02. > :27:06.the Russians are doing. So, some answers there from Mr Putin, but on
:27:07. > :27:12.the central question of what the Russians are doing, no answer at
:27:13. > :27:17.all. Two days later, on Mongolian TV, a rare show of emotion from the
:27:18. > :27:23.man with the poker face. The tune? The old Soviet anthem which, under
:27:24. > :27:28.him, is once again Russia's. Vista Putin has a romantic longing for the
:27:29. > :27:32.old Soviet Union, for Russian greatness. And that sets him on a
:27:33. > :27:37.collision course with the West. I don't think Putin is going to give
:27:38. > :27:42.way. This is not, for him, an economic issue. In any sense, he is
:27:43. > :27:47.so heavily engaged now that to back off could easily be fatal for him,
:27:48. > :27:49.so he's not going to do it. The future, according to this former
:27:50. > :27:57.Kremlin insider, could be truly bleak. As a shed There are the
:27:58. > :28:00.famous words said by Grey. Lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall
:28:01. > :28:11.not see them lit again in our lifetime. I do not believe in a way
:28:12. > :28:14.back. I think we are at the beginning of a series of crises that
:28:15. > :28:21.will change the landscape of the world.
:28:22. > :28:30.The landscape of Ukraine has already been torn by war. Russia's of the
:28:31. > :28:32.neighbours are watching their borders and wondering if Mr Putin
:28:33. > :28:35.will roll the dice again.