MOSCOW, June 19. /TASS/. On June 19, Russia’s Channel One will show the first part of the The Putin Interviews, a documentary made by US filmmaker Oliver Stone. The four-part film premiered on Showtime in the United States on June 12. Stone said on Facebook that the documentary would also come out "in several other countries including the UK, Germany, France, and Italy, in roughly the same June time period."
On June 16, the final part of the documentary was shown in the US.
The documentary is based on more than ten conversations that the US filmmaker had with the Russian president over the past two years.
While talking with Stone, Putin evaluated the current state of Russian-US relations, particularly rejecting allegations about Moscow’s interference in the US presidential election. He also expressed his views on NATO’s activities in Europe and touched upon issues concerning the Ukrainian and Syrian crises, as well as upon his relations with three US presidents - George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. He did not try to evade answering hard questions about Russia’s domestic issues, his way to the presidential position and personal life.
Stone earlier said in an interview with TASS that the first part of the documentary was dedicated to the beginning of Putin’s career, the second part covered Russia’s problems. In the third part of the film, Putin and Stone discussed the Ukrainian and Syrian crises, while in the fourth part, they turned to the situation in the United States.
In an interview with The Guardian, Oliver Stone said that his documentary was aimed at building "a rounded portrait of arguably the most fascinating and frightening world leader in a generation." When asked why he had not challenged Putin, Stone said that "It’s not my job to do that." According to the filmmaker, he wanted not to "change Putin’s mind, but to show it," as well as to show that "Putin is not so very different to many world leaders.".