When The Times foreign correspondent Marc Bennetts moved to Russia in 1997, there was hope for a new future for the country. But over the next 25 years, he witnessed the rise of Vladimir Putin and the erosion of civil liberties. In his new book, The Descent: Witnessing Russia’s Spiral into Madness Under Putin, Marc charts how one man remade Russia in his own paranoid image.

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Guest: Marc Bennetts, foreign correspondent, The Times. 

Host: Manveen Rana. 

Producer: Micaela Arneson. 

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Read more: Lies and fear: my life under the Kremlin’s propaganda machine

Further listening: ‘I took a grenade blast to escape’: Russian deserters speak to The Times

Clips: Channel One Russia, Educational Video Group, NBC News, ITN, Times Now World, Dot’s Eye. 

Photo: Getty Images.

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