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Putin and the past that never went away

Exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar now lives in New York after fleeing Russia in 2022, and has since been sentenced in absentia to prison. He says the Soviet Union’s collapse wasn’t a clean break, but a transformation.
He talks with NPR's Nick Spicer about his new book, "The Dark Side of the Earth," which argues that the forces shaping Russian President Vladimir Putin today were never fully dismantled and are still driving global conflict.
This segment aired on April 15, 2026.