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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping enter the hall during a signing ceremony on May 20, 2026, in Beijing, China. (Getty Images)
__Hudson Institute and the Kleptocracy Initiative would like to give special thanks to Valery Balayan, director of the film, for permission to screen Who Is Mr. Putin? at Hudson on April 27, 2016.__
Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative hosted the first U.S. screening and English-language premiere of the film Who Is Mr. Putin? Based on investigations by independent journalists Anastasia Kirilenko and Vladimir Ivanidze, the film documents the origins of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s private wealth and subsequent rise to power.
The film has been lauded by experts for demonstrating how Putin's ascension to the Russian presidency is explained by an alliance built in the early 1990s between himself, certain friends from Leningrad's KGB, and mafia groups. Who Is Mr. Putin? was released in December 2015 and has already been viewed by more than 2 million Russian-speakers worldwide.
The screening was followed by a short panel discussion, moderated by Hudson Senior Fellow David Satter, featuring Anastasia Kirilenko, Karen Dawisha, and Ilya Zaslavskiy.
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