THE ACTOR and THE SPY

As missiles fall on Ukraine and Russia makes nuclear threats, the world seems closer to global peril than it has at any time since the Cold War. And at the centre of it all are two unlikely adversaries: Putin, a dictator billionaire and former spy, and Zelensky, a onetime actor, comic and anti-corruption crusader whose courage has earned him a place in his people's hearts and the history books.

- NICK BRYANT

ON December 31, 1999, as fireworks went off over Sydney Harbour to usher in a new millennium, word came through from the Kremlin in Moscow of a change in leadership that would dramatically alter the course of the 21st century. A former KGB spymaster by the name of Vladimir Putin would become the acting President of Russia. Back then, the most immediate risk to the world seemed to come from what was called the Y2K bug, a flaw in computer operating systems that threatened to wreak global havoc. Little did we know that Putin posed a far greater threat to the international order, and would go on to become the mastermind behind so much misery and murder.

From Chechnya to Crimea, from Syria to the cathedral town of Salisbury in England, Putin has deployed his assassins and war machine. On February 24, 2022, a dark day that instantly drew comparisons with Adolf Hitler’s Blitzkrieg assault on Poland in 1939, he mounted his most brazen attack yet by ordering the invasion of Ukraine. It was the biggest assault on a European country since the end of World War II.

In this David and Goliath battle, Putin has come up against an unlikely adversary. Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, has personified the resistance of his people. Offered an escape route by America when Putin’s tanks crossed the border, the 44-year-old told US officials he did not want to be airlifted out of the country. “I need ammunition, not a ride,” he told them, a statement that immediately became a meme.