PUTIN VS THE WEST
BBC Two, 9pm
Norma Percy, the bestconnected documentary producer around (Inside Obama’s White House, Endgame in Ireland), prises open her little black book once more for this fascinating three-parter examining how Europe and the US have attempted to contain Vladimir Putin’s ambitions over the years through a combination of flattery, threats and bargaining. David Cameron, Volodymyr Zelensky and François Hollande are among the contributors; there is no Putin (although Percy has interviewed him before), so the Kremlin party line is represented by Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin. This opening instalment takes us from the reluctant abdication of Putin’s Ukrainian puppet Viktor Yanukovych through to the annexation of Crimea, via a whirligig of summits and meetings filled with trivial treasures (Hollande griping about stale sandwiches), while Putin nurses his paranoia, awaiting the opportunity to strike. The Minsk Agreement that ended hostilities was an unsatisfactory fudge but, as former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko observes, it bought eight years for his country to build its military and economic strength, as well as a preparatory coalition against its primary aggressor.