The man who helped Vladimir Putin to become a president

It's claimed Vlad then helped use this to intimidate Yeltsin, who was the first Russian leader after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and seize control in 1999. Putin usurped Yeltsin as the president of the Russian Federation and began a stunning reform of Kremlin politics that would change the country forever. "Was there any point that Clinton could have talked Yeltsin into finding somebody else other than Putin, if we had known who Putin was and what he was doing? Could we have changed history?" explained Baer.