Original subtitles

[sparse piano melody and walking bass notes]

[narrator] It was an idyllic life:

wealth beyond anyone’s wildest dreams,

homes across the world,

a chateau in the South of France.

Countess Alexandra Tolstoy,

an aristocratic English rose

living a fairy-tale.

The man of her dreams:

billionaire Sergei Pugachev,

an oligarch,

one of Russia’s richest men.

Yet it’s all about to come crashing down.

Once a friend and ally of Vladimir Putin,

Sergei has fallen foul of the Russian president.

[Sergei] A lot of people call me:

‘They want to kill you. Be careful.’

[narrator] He’s on the Kremlin’s hit list,

and enemies of the state can find it hard to hide.

[explosion booms]

[narrator] So what happens when Russia turns on you

in this dangerous and murderous world?

[Ben Brown] Some breaking news,

and a murder investigation has been launched

into the death of another Russian

on British soil.

[narrator] What happens to the fairy-tale

[Sergei]

[narrator] ...and to the love?

[presenter]

[Alexandra] It’s a nightmare.

[crying] Sorry.

[sparse string and piano music]

[upbeat strummed music]

[narrator] This story begins five years ago.

[Alexandra] Darling, you want to have a scone?

[Ivan] Yes.

[Alexandra] Do you want strawberry jam

or blackberry jam or raspberry?

[Ivan] Um, strawberry.

[narrator] It was supposed to be

the tale of the Russian oligarch...

[Alexandra] Do you want to go and sit down?

[narrator] ...Sergei Pugachev,

willing to take a stand against Vladimir Putin,

and his partner,

the mother of their three children,

Alexandra Tolstoy.

But the story that unfolded was one

that neither of them could have predicted.

[children's laughter, footsteps, and chatter]

[narrator] Back then, Alexandra and her three children

were living a life of enviable luxury.

[footsteps clomping] Catch me.

Now you have to catch me.

[Alexandra] We have a PA,

two drivers, two housekeepers.

We have our lovely English nanny,

who's a very old-fashioned, kind of...

Downton Abbey-type English nanny.

Then we have our Russian nanny.

And then every afternoon,

we have to have a French teacher who comes for an hour

to do my son’s homework because it’s in French [laughs]

and I don’t really speak French.

[woman speaking in foreign language]

[Alexandra] So we moved here.

Just had our first baby,

but then we bought the house next door.

I don’t know why I thought we didn’t really need it.

But actually,

now I can’t really imagine

how we could have all squeezed in.

[narrator] The family has a globe-trotting lifestyle,

but it’s the Chelsea House they call home.

[Alexandra] This is meant to be the more formal part.

It’s quite unusual because these were all

artists' studios,

so up here is our bedroom.

I absolutely love it because it’s got

these huge windows.

It’s very unusual to have this sort of lateral space in London.

Bryan Ferry is our neighbour, just up the road.

We have this, and then other one is

the children’s part, really.

Apparently, Helena Bonham Carter lives

like that, where they have--

she has one house,

and her--her husband has

another house, next to each other.

We have an adult house,

and they have a children’s house. [laughs]

It’s really kind of a fun way to live.

Oh, I'll show you my handbag cupboard.

So my weakness is Chanel. [laughs lightly]

[interviewer] It’s filed.

[Alexandra] Yeah, it’s filed!

That’s my amazing housekeeper.

I do love clothes, I have to say.

They're Manolo Blahnik--

[interviewer] Oh, yeah!

[Alexandra] ...who, luckily, is on the next-door street.

Sergei will freak out, but, I mean, there are

[laughs] thousands and thousands of pounds' worth in there.

Just hope my daughter grows up with the same size feet as me.

[Alexandra] When I met Sergei, it was electric,

absolutely electric and amazing,

and I fell so in love with him

and it was so romantic.

This very, very powerful person,

with me, he wanted to be

a completely different person.

[Sergei speaking Russian in video]

[Alexandra] I’d never felt such a connection

to someone, ever.

[Sergei speaking Russian in video]

[Alexandra] It was such a love affair.

[narrator] When Alexandra met Sergei,

he was separated from his first wife.

Now his divorce has finally come through.

[Alexandra] So eight years later

and three children, we are very keen

that we should get married.

I’d love to make it as big a deal as possible,

and Sergei would like to make it as small a deal [laughs]

as possible, probably.

But he does though, he says that,

and then when we actually have the party, he loves it.

[Alexandra] I’ve had a few, and he loves them.

So hopefully, we will get married in the South of France.

It’s so beautiful and...

amazing weather.

Yeah, so I think in June would be great.

[moderate plucked and accordion music]

[narrator] But the man she plans to marry

isn’t just any old billionaire.

[Sergei in Russian]

[narrator] Sergei Pugachev is reputed to be

number three on the Kremlin’s hit list

and is living a secret life in France.

Only a handful of his closest aides

know his movements at any one time.

[Sergei in Russian]

[muted trumpet melody]

[military boots marching]

[narrator] Sergei Pugachev had amassed his vast fortune

in post-communist Russia.

He had a coalmine,

shipyards,

designer brands.

He even had his own bank.

[Luke] If you have a bank in Russia in the 1990s,

you can take advantage

of all the capital pouring in to the new Russia.

And then, uh, life is very shiny indeed.

[narrator] He was the archetypal oligarch.

[Oliver] Pugachev wasn’t quite in the top 600 richest men

in the world, right? But he was just outside.

That’s a serious achievement.

You know, if you think about

how many people there are in the world,

he was in the top thousand.

Yeah, that’s--that's going some

for a boy from the Soviet Union.

[upbeat men's chorus singing in Russian]

[narrator] Sergei’s huge wealth has bought him a chateau

in the French Riviera

and a lifestyle he could only have dreamed of

as the child of a military family

from St. Petersburg.

[Sergei] This is cool.

It’s me.

It’s me. It’s my first Rolls Royce.

My first. [laughs]

[Sergei] I opened my first bank in Soviet Union in 1991.

I gave a lot of loans to government.

It was a lot of money.

It was millions, and people say,

‘Okay, it was like Putin’s banker.’

[narrator] When Sergei was making his first billions,

the man at the top was Boris Yeltsin.

When it became clear that he was on his way out,

Sergei and the other oligarchs wanted

to protect their fortunes.

[Luke] The oligarchs wanted to keep all of their assets,

and they wanted someone they thought

they could kind of puppet.

They eventually lighted on a rather charmless,

small,

not-very-well-known,

pale-faced

spy, or former spy,

called Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin,

who went from being a kind of functionary

in the property department to being the head

or the successor to the KGB, the FSB,

to Prime Minister to President

in the scope of two years.

[Putin in Russian]

[Luke] It was a meteoric ascent,

and Sergei Pugachev was someone

who helped push Putin up the stairs.

[Sergei]

[interviewer] You went on holiday together?

[Sergei]

[narrator] Sergei cemented his power

by becoming a senator in the upper house

of the Russian parliament.

Before long, he’d become

one of Putin’s most trusted advisers.

But then,

he fell in love.

[Sergei] And maybe I will show you

something interesting.

[Sergei] I met her in 2008.

[interviewer] So that’s the first photo

-of you two together? -[Sergei] Yes.

[Sergei] So happy.

[Alexandra] And when I first went to see Sergei

in Moscow,

he was...

one of the most important

and influential people

in the whole of Russia.

[saxophone waltz melody[

[Alexandra] It was, you know, this James Bond kind of office,

where you go through, uh, like, glass doors,

they snap behind you, and then you go through the second ones,

and then, like, guards with Kalashnikovs.

You are escorted to, like,

this special metal-reinforced lift,

and you go up, and it's a secret zone,

where no one else can enter,

and this was his daily life.

[narrator] Alexandra had been hired

to help Sergei improve his English.

[Sergei] She helped me to...

to speak in English, just, like, practice,

not like...

like teacher.

She came to my office.

You know...

[narrator] But the appearance of Countess Alexandra Tolstoy

on the scene of Moscow’s ruling elite

did not impress everyone.

[Alexandra] There’s a law in Russia

that says a senator cannot marry a foreigner.

Sergei says that many of these problems

that have arisen with the Russian government

and Putin

are because he’s with me.

And Putin himself was--

has said to Sergei at some point,

‘You are a traitor. Why are you with this English person?’

[Sergei]

[Sergei]

[narrator] When Sergei met Alexandra,

life was good.

Within a year of meeting,

they had a baby,

and before long, another on the way

and were living a life of luxury

in Moscow,

London, and Paris.

[Alexandra] So from 2008 or 9,

it was...

incredible. I used to go and stay

in the George V with my--

you know, my lovely little baby.

He’d give me his credit card.

I’d go down the Avenue de Montaigne.

I’d go shopping.

[Alexandra] I could do what I liked.

I had a private jet.

I just had to pack my suitcase, and then I could go.

I remember doing up our house in Moscow,

and I wanted these very specific cast-iron radiators.

And I just put ten on a private jet, and then--

you know, and I would never have got them to Moscow.

[narrator] Alexandra and Sergei moved

between an array of properties.

There was the £12 million family home

they were renovating in Battersea,

a 200-acre country estate in Herefordshire,

and then in the Caribbean,

a beachfront villa costing $40 million.

[Alexandra] Sergei suddenly said,

‘Oh, let’s go to St. Barts in the Carribean.'

Then when we were there, he just went and walked

into an estate agency and said,

‘I want to buy a house.’ [laughs lightly]

And then he bought the best house on the island.

It was on the best beach.

It had a massive beachfront.

It was incredible.

[splash]

[Alexandra] I would go there each spring for three months,

and we took with us our housekeeper, nanny,

bodyguard, doctor.

All that money meant that I didn’t have to work,

I didn’t have to clean,

that I could spend

as much time as possible with my children.

-[Sergei] Hello. -[Alexandra] Hello, my babies!

[Alexandra] Of course I enjoyed it.

He just made me feel incredibly protected and safe.

[narrator] But though the good times rolled

around the world for Sergei and Alexandra,

back in Russia,

the mood had long since changed.

[military boots marching]

[narrator] Vladimir Putin had turned

against his former oligarch allies.

[Vladimir Putin in Russian]

[narrator] When President Putin summoned

the oligarchs to a meeting,

Sergei was amongst those present.

But it was Mikhail Khodorkovsky,

the richest man in Russia,

who hit back about state corruption.

Later, he’d pay the price,

sent to prison for ten years.

Within months, the Russian government passed

a new law giving its agents

a license to kill enemies of the state

anywhere in the world.

It wasn’t long before Putin’s attentions

turned to Sergei

and his billions.

[Luke] Essentially, there was a cooling.

Pugachev, who was seeing Putin daily--

he was seeing him less often.

[Luke] So they hadn’t fallen out,

but he was moving to the edge of Putin’s circle.

And generally, when that happens,

that--that doesn’t end well.

[Sergei]

[interviewer] Could he have been threatened

by your success, do you think?

[Sergei] Yes, sure. Yeah.

[narrator] If Putin was growing suspicious of Sergei,

he would soon have good reason.

In 2008, Sergei’s bank hit problems,

and the Russian state bailed it out

with a billion-dollar loan.

Two years later, the bank still went under

with no sign of what happened to the loan.

Sergei claims he’d sold the bank many years earlier,

but Russia disagreed.

In court,

he was found liable for the bank’s losses.

They said the bailout money had gone

into a Swiss bank account

and then was moved around

until, eventually,

all one billion

simply vanished.

Sergei fled Russia.

[Oliver] If Pugachev had stayed in Russia,

he would probably be jailed,

and he would be vulnerable.

[Oliver] Saying that Pugachev is innocent or guilty,

it--it’s just irrelevant.

If he did do something,

that just made it easier for the prosecutors.

If he didn’t do something, they could’ve

invented it anyway.

-[loud thud] -[Oliver] The Russian state is

best thought of as a mafia organisation.

It's very good at getting what it wants.

It’s very good at harassing people.

It’s very good at imprisoning people,

It’s very good at killing people.

[Oliver] So yeah, leaving the country is

a sensible survival strategy.

It’s not sufficient because some people

outside the country have been murdered,

but it’s sensible.

[narrator] In Nice, Sergei’s chateau proves to be

the most luxurious of hideaways.

[cook] Would you like steamed salmon?

-[Sergei] Smoked salmon. -[cook] And not steamed?

[Sergei] Yeah, no. Smoked. Thank you.

[narrator] But Sergei is now

an enemy of the Russian state

and claims he’s already had his first taste of this.

He says he’s been visited

by Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency,

or DIA,

demanding repayment

for the billion-dollar loan.

[Sergei]

[interviewer] And were you frightened?

[narrator] The DIA deny this ever happened.

What’s certain is Sergei refused

to pay the money.

-[live marching band music] -[synchronized footsteps]

[narrator] Over the next few years,

enemies of the Russian state

would continue to fall.

[news anchor 1] This is the affluent community

in Southern England.

It was here that wealthy Russian exile

and whistle-blower Alexander Perepilichny

dropped dead while jogging.

Traces of an extremely toxic plant

in his stomach appear to have been found.

[news anchor 2] Boris Berezovsky died by hanging,

British police say.

The 67-year-old was found dead in a locked bathroom

at his home at the weekend.

He was a one-time ally of Vladimir Putin,

but in 2000, he started to speak out

against the Russian president

and exiled himself in the UK.

[news anchor 3] Boris Nemtsov was shot

four times in the back,

in the shadow of the Kremlin.

Mr. Nemtsov was due to lead a rally

against Putin tomorrow.

Opposition figures point

to the Russian authorities being involved.

[Oliver] The Russian government

kills people if it can’t get to them

any other way.

There have been a lot of business people

with Russian connections whose deaths are...

mysterious.

[Oliver] You shouldn’t infer from that

that everyone is going to be a victim

of state-sponsored assassination.

But if I had fallen out with the Kremlin,

I would be nervous.

Once one assassination has happened,

you start looking over your shoulder all the time.

[narrator] By 2015,

Sergei is living as a permanent exile,

dividing his time between France

and the family home in London.

[boys chatting]

[narrator] But Russia’s DIA is closing in

and using the British courts

to pursue Sergei and the missing billion dollars.

His passports have been seized,

his assets frozen worldwide,

and the family’s become aware

they’re being followed.

Surveillance footage shows

how closely they're being watched.

[Alexandra] That was my birthday,

and Sergei was buying me some flowers

just off the King’s Road,

and two guys jumped out of a car, like, harassed him.

[tense ambient tone]

[Alexandra] He was with his bodyguard,

and his bodyguard pushed them away,

and Sergei drove off.

And he called me, and he said,

'I’ve just been, like, harassed by two people,

and I’m not coming to dinner.'

I called immediately Alexandra:

‘Be careful.

Be at home,

and stay there.

Don’t move.

We have to check what happened.’

[Sergei] A lot of people called me:

'Look, you know that...

they want-- they want to kill you.

Be careful.’

It’s very, very...

uh, dangerous.

[Alexandra] I came home that night, and...

Sergei did not come back for three days,

and I didn’t hear from him, and I didn’t know where he was.

[narrator] In fact, the men following Sergei were

lawyers for Russia’s DIA,

trying to serve him with court papers.

But it didn’t stop there.

[Alexandra] Then the next day,

I went to my boys’ sports day,

and a mother came up to me, and she went

‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry to hear about you.’

And I went, ‘What?’

She went, ‘Oh, did you not read this article in the paper?’

[Alexandra] The police discovered GPS trackers

on every single one of my cars

including the car only, only used

by me and my children.

And...

they were saying that maybe two of them were bombs.

[narrator] An investigation by the Met Police confirmed

they weren’t bombs, but they were

hidden trackers.

[narrator] Sergei didn’t wait to find out.

Without his passport,

he needed to get out of Britain quickly

and in secret.

[interviewer] How did you leave the country?

How did you get away?

Mmm, somebody helped me.

[interviewer] You are not saying?

No.

[narrator] It’s the summer of 2015.

Sergei remains in hiding at his chateau in Nice,

increasingly, his fortress

as well as his home.

[Sergei] It was my...

salon rouge for my guests,

for everybody, but right now,

it’s just my children’s, yeah, room.

It’s different.

[interviewer] So this is the, kind of, formal guest room?

[Sergei] It was. Yeah. Not now.

[narrator] Sergei’s been summoned

to the High Court in London,

accused of leaving the UK without permission.

And more than this,

he’s missing Alexandra and the children

back in Britain.

[interviewer] Do you think they're safe in London?

[Sergei] Nobody knows.

Nobody knows. It’s--

life is life, but it’s...

maybe we will fix it, but...

nobody knows when.

[interviewer] But you--well, for the moment it’s a worry?

Of course, sure.

Of course. Every time, every day.

[suspended ambient tone]

[moderate piano music]

[narrator] It’s autumn,

and Sergei’s heading for Paris

with a high-risk strategy.

He’s going head-to-head with the Russian state

and suing them for the loss of his business assets.

[news programme theme music]

[in Russian]

[news anchor in Russian]

[narrator] Today Sergei will announce

his multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the Russian state.

Alexandra’s come to support him at the press conference.

[Alexandra] I do feel very frightened for--

especially for Sergei’s safety

but also for mine and the children

because...

there have been such terrible cases of murder,

especially in London.

[Alexandra] I know a few days ago he had a bad incident

in Paris, where...

he was driving a car, and two cars tried to...

you know, squash his car.

[Alexandra] But, you know, I chose him,

and...

I chose a very riskful life, so...

And I love him, so...

it’s my choice. [laughs lightly]

[narrator] Sergei’s hotel, factories, and shipyards have

all been seized,

and he’s accused of stealing

from the bank he once owned,

but he's refusing to lay low.

[Sergei’s litigation advisor] We are very pleased to announce

that Mr. Pugachev has successfully

registered his claim against the Russian Federation

for damages in excess of ten billion US dollars.

[tense ambient tones]

[Sergei’s litigation advisor] The regime now in Russia has

a history of intimidation.

When they want you, they go for you,

and they don’t care how they go for you.

[advisor] And you gotta not lose your resolve,

and then you end up with nothing.

But frankly, they took almost everything,

so once you have nothing, you fight for everything.

And Sergei will fight for everything.

[advisor] And it’s more human than people realise.

Alexandra’s being watched. She knows it.

So...

Alexandra is stressed.

She's worried about Sergei.

What kind of pressure is he under?

How are my children taken care of?

You can’t talk a lot about what’s going on,

but the children are saying, ‘Where’s Papa?’

Right?

[Alexandra] I don’t talk about our arrangements on the phone.

I don’t even tell--I mean, I’ll my friends where I am,

but you know, I’m very careful.

Even my parents, I don’t tell too much.

[Alexandra] I have periods of being terribly anxious,

but then-- and I’m not going to leave him,

so...

what can I do?

[crows cawing]

[narrator] Alexandra’s life has moved a long way

from the one her parents had envisaged for her,

from their family home in the English countryside.

[introductory accordion notes]

[narrator] Her father is Count Nikolai Tolstoy,

a distant cousin of the author Leo Tolstoy.

The family have inherited Russian titles.

[Nikolai] Here is where I work.

[narrator] Count Tolstoy is an author and historian.

[Nikolai] That’s the--a book I wrote

on the history of our family.

And in fact, there's-- oh look at that.

There you can see they were all quite little.

There's Alexandra among them.

[Georgina] She likes exciting things.

She likes adventure.

She doesn’t really go for--

necessarily for security.

I mean, I always remember when she--

she begged and begged us to go away to boarding school,

which was not what we had planned at all,

especially for the girls.

And you know I said, ‘Why, why do you?’

and she said, ‘Why, I just love the adventure.

I just want to go.’

And...

she was, um...

yeah, she wasn’t always

very conforming at school, but...

[laughs]

she certainly loved it at Downham House, yes.

[narrator] Alexandra went

from an elite boarding school to working

as a broker in the city

before embarking on a decade of Russian adventures.

While Sergei was building his empire,

Alexandra was in another world entirely.

[horses' hooves clopping]

[narrator] She started a travel business

and rode by horseback

through the former Soviet Union,

Turkmenistan, Kyrgysztan, and beyond.

But then came love,

a handsome man on horseback:

Shamil,

a penniless cossack.

Salud.

[narrator] It was, by any account,

an extraordinary match.

They even took part in a documentary

about unlikely couples, which featured them

in Shamil’s tiny flat in Uzbekistan.

[Alexandra] And this is the bathroom...

[Shamil speaking in foreign language]

[Alexandra] ...which Shamil says that he's washing.

[Shamil speaking in foreign language]

[Alexandra] And...

this is the kitchen.

[up-tempo plucked music]

[Shamil speaking in foreign language]

[Alexandra] Mm? [Shamil laughs]

[Alexandra] Uh, this is where we cook,

on this tiny little stove.

[narrator] Unfortunately,

it didn’t last.

A few years later,

when Alexandra and Shamil were struggling

to make ends meet,

along came a knight in shining armour.

[Alexandra] When I met Sergei,

I wasn’t happy in my marriage,

and I’d had a very, very stressful time.

Sergei felt like this saviour coming in.

I talked with him for hours and hours on the phone.

I just didn’t want to be with anyone else.

And I don’t think that in my life

I’d ever felt that before.

[interviewer] Did you like him when you met him?

[Nikolai] Yes, yes.

He was very modest.

There was nothing

Sir Philip Green about him

[laughs lightly] remotely.

And I still picture him with Alexei, the youngest,

wheeling out his pushchair to the, um,

village shop to go and buy some sweets or something.

There isn’t many people

of his wealth that would do that.

[Georgina] Well, I said to Alexandra

on the phone before we’d even met him,

I said, ‘You know,

you're so used to your freedom.

You love riding.

Have you actually thought what’s gonna happen, you know?

I can imagine that somebody like that

is gonna be jealous,

that they’re going to want to keep you in a gilded cage.

[Georgina] You know, they’re so used to

having what they want

and getting what they want.’

And she said, ‘Oh, well, you know,

you don’t understand. We're so in love.’

And...

I was--yeah, I was really worried.

I thought...

'Do you really know what you're doing?'

[ambient chords]

[narrator] It’s December 2015,

and Alexandra is at home in Chelsea

when on the instructions of the High Court,

three police officers arrive late at night

looking for Sergei.

[Alexandra] They said, ‘We have

a search and arrest warrant for Sergei Pugachev.

If you don’t let us in now,

we will knock the door down.’

[Alexandra] So I was on my own, you know,

with the children and my nanny.

So I had to let them in.

So they literally looked

everywhere, every cupboard, every bathroom, every room.

Even they looked, um, under here.

[Alexandra] It used to be a cellar, but it’s where we have

the boiler.

[Alexandra] Looked in cupboards in the children’s room.

I was very, very upset because my children were there,

and I don’t want them,

you know, to hear anything like that.

It’s very traumatic.

It’s a method of intimidation,

just as it was when they put GPS trackers on our cars.

It’s to frighten me and to frighten my children...

to get at Sergei, and I--

It’s just really, really unpleasant.

I’m a British citizen, and I have done nothing.

[Oliver] The Russian prosecution agency is--

it's like a-- the mob enforcement wing.

[Oliver] And they use all the tools at their disposal,

whether those tools are legal tools or extra-legal tools.

Whatever is the tool for the moment,

they will use it.

[narrator] Two months on,

Russia is continuing to use

the High Court to pursue Sergei

and the missing billion dollars.

Alone in London,

Alexandra fears she'll be caught up in the case,

so she's leaving the country with the children.

[Alexandra] I'd love to see the swimming costumes, I think.

[Alexandra] It’s just so, so frightening

what’s happening to us, and I feel so out of control.

[Alexandra] When I met Sergei, I was a very relaxed person,

very, very happy,

very reckless and carefree,

and probably, you know,

my life has ended up like this because of that.

[interviewer] Do you regret?

No, because I love my children so much.

How could I regret it? And I do--

of course, I love Sergei.

I do really love him, and I feel like...

No, I don’t regret. It’s more that I regret--

sometimes I look back, and we've had a very,

very turbulent relationship,

and I feel

regret for my children that it wasn’t,

sort of, more peaceful and calm.

Sometimes I just want to cry. I feel like...

[Alexandra] And I think some people look at me

and they think, ‘Oh, I'll bet your life’s so easy,'

you know, and 'Your lucky children,

they are so privileged.'

But they are not, you know. The most...

privileged upbringing is

to live in a safe and secure and happy...

family unit, which is together.

[narrator] Alexandra’s taken the children out of school.

Their flight is booked.

They're leaving tonight.

[Alexandra] Darling, shall we decide

what we’ve got to pack from here?

[son angrily] Hmph!

[Alexandra] I’m a bit worried about how much--

Oh my goodness.

[Alexandra] We're going for six weeks, seven weeks.

I can’t say where we're going

because of security.

You know, it’s too dangerous to say where we are going.

And we're going because...

we very much hope that Sergei can be there with us.

Obviously, he can’t come here.

And...

also, I think Sergei,

he wants me out of the country for a while.

[Alexandra] They don’t want me to be called as a witness.

Sergei feels it’s, like, a terrible invasion, and...

again, intimidation,

and he doesn’t want me to be subjected to that.

And so far, he’s been very protective of me,

and, you know, not...

telling me things in order to protect me.

[Alexandra] I would rather not go to court. [laughs]

And I don’t want to be torn apart

in a sort of public way.

[Alexandra] So he'll come for a bit,

or maybe the whole thing. I don’t know.

But he doesn’t even tell me on the telephone.

[somber solo piano music]

[Sergei on phone in Russian]

[child in Russian]

[Alexandra] And I feel really sorry for Sergei because...

you know, he’s been forcibly separated

from his own family.

Awful, because he adores--

you know, it’s not like he’s not really into--

Maybe some men like that are not really into their children,

but he is really, really into his children.

Aw.

I have to be philosophical and think that...

It can only get better. [laughs lightly]

Well, hope so.

[narrator] In fact,

it would get so much worse.

Later that month,

the High Court sentences Sergei

to two years in prison for leaving the country

without permission.

If he sets foot in the UK now,

he’ll go straight to jail.

Sergei never made it to the secret location

to join Alexandra,

but she and the children visit him regularly

at the chateau in France.

[up-tempo string bass rhythm]

[narrator] With Sergei now permanently in hiding,

the threat from Russia hangs over the couple.

[bass melody continues with drums]

[narrator] It’s difficult for them to move far

beyond the confines of the chateau,

putting huge pressure on their relationship.

[interviewer] Where do you think you and Sergei

are at your happiest?

Sergei is happiest here. [laughs]

-[Sergei laughs] No. -Um...

[Sergei]

[Alexandra] No, but you are. I think you are happiest here.

[Sergei]

[Alexandra laughs]

-[Sergei] -[Alexandra] No, I'm happy here,

but it’s--

along with feeling very safe,

it feels quite isolated as well.

[Alexandra] So I find it difficult then.

[Sergei] Yeah.

-[laughing] To be isolated? -[Sergei] Yeah.

-[pool balls crash] -[Sergei] Hmm.

[Alexandra] I think Sergei loves the feeling of security,

and also he’s just by nature quite a loner,

so he loves to be...

with his family alone,

feeling secure. You know, he hasn’t been

out of the house for two weeks

he told me, since I last came here,

and he doesn’t mind.

-[Sergei disappointed] Ugh. -[Alexandra groans]

[Alexandra] I suppose I just feel concerned about...

how our future as a family works.

[narrator] Alexandra and Sergei must decide

whether to uproot the family

to live all together in France.

[Sergei in Russian]

[interviewer] How does that feel

for you to be here and the family to be in London?

Horrible, of course.

We have to be together.

[suspended string chords]

[Alexandra] To be brutal, I can’t live here.

You know, and I’ve had to think about it a lot.

I just would feel too

claustrophobic and enclosed

and isolated.

It’s about feeling isolated, and I just--

I couldn’t do it.

[suspended ambient tones]

[Alexandra] I still find it,

the whole situation, very...

stressful, really,

because it’s still so undecided.

You know, Sergei wants us to live here. I just...

don’t know if I can do that, really.

And...

you know, everything in life is--

you’re able to cope with,

and I think what it is, if you have

an idea of what will happen--

but I just have no idea,

and I find that very stressful...

[Alexandra] that I can’t plan or predict or...

envisage what will happen.

[narrator] Alexandra left the chateau abruptly

in the spring of 2016,

taking the children with her.

They would never return.

[birds chirping]

[narrator] Back in England,

Alexandra still seems shocked

at the events at the chateau that spring

and the changes brought for the whole family.

Sergei had one of his explosions

where he...

physically attacked me.

[Alexandra] He locked the children in a room,

separate from me, and he locked my passport

and the children’s passports in his safe.

And he has a gun in his room.

[Alexandra] Something in me just snapped that weekend.

I just said, 'I cannot ever, ever do this again.'

I’m never--I said, 'I can come and visit,

but I’m n--' because at that point,

I was wavering. I felt guilty.

Should I come and live there with him,

or should I not?

But that was...

the--just the end.

I knew we weren’t safe.

I just knew it.

[somber plucked music]

[Sergei in Russian]

[ambient tone swells and recedes]

[narrator] Over the next two years,

the death toll rises

for enemies of the Russian state.

[moderate ambient music]

[explosion booms]

[narrator] Relations between Britain

and Russia reach a new low.

Sergei Skripal,

a former Russian agent who’d fled to the UK,

and his daughter Yulia

are poisoned with a nerve agent,

Novichok,

in the Wiltshire city

of Salisbury.

Though the Skripals eventually recover,

a local resident dies.

[Theresa May] The two individuals

named by the police and CPS

are officers

from the Russian military intelligence service.

-[crowd murmurs] -[May] We will not tolerate

such barbaric attacks

against our country.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind] I think he certainly allows

aspects of his intelligence network

to take decisions

that in his view will punish people

who have betrayed the Russian Federation.

[Ben Brown] Some breaking news,

and a murder investigation

has been launched into the death

of another Russian on British soil.

[narrator] By 2018,

some 40 Russians

who’ve fallen foul of the Kremlin

have met untimely deaths.

[ambient music ends]

[narrator] In London, Alexandra lives in fear,

but now she seems to have two enemies:

the Russian state

and Sergei.

[interviewer] So this man, how often is he there?

[Alexandra] Oh, he’s there every day, all day,

and he’s been there for about...

six months, more?

He talks really loudly in Russian.

But I do find it very, very odd

because it’s also the kind of style of person

who Sergei would get to spy on us.

[interviewer] It would be hard not to be...

paranoid, given--

[laughing] given everything you’ve been through.

No, I’m very paranoid.

[Alexandra] I went to the Russian government’s

lawyers here,

and I said-- I assumed it was them,

and I said, ‘Oh, are you having me followed?’

And they said, ‘We have

information

that, uh, Sergei has been having you followed.’

[interviewer] Why-- why would he do that though?

[Alexandra] Because, I don’t know now,

but definitely there have been

long phases where he’s absolutely hell-bent on revenge

that I wouldn’t...

go with him to France.

[plucked musical introduction]

[narrator] Now, permanently separated

from Alexandra, Sergei is consumed

by his multibillion-dollar lawsuit

against the Russian state,

whatever the dangers.

[interviewer] Are you on Putin’s hit list?

What number do you think you are?

[Sergei] The--theoretically, in newspapers,

number three,

[laughing] but who knows?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Maybe number one.

[Sergei]

[children having discussion]

[narrator] The children haven’t seen their father

since they left France in 2016.

Alexandra says

Sergei’s cut her off financially.

[toy swords clacking]

[Alexandra] Our relationship is non-existent, I would say,

except...

he occasionally writes very abusive emails.

He’s...

accused me of working with the Russian government.

He’s accused me of being a--

-[interviewer] The government? -Yeah,

he says I’m a KGB spy,

and--

[interviewer] Why does he think that?

[Alexandra] Because I went to the family court

and I sued for maintenance.

Obviously, he never ever paid a penny

of any of that maintenance.

He completely cut us off.

[Alexandra] Okay, did you both brush your teeth?

-[Alexei] Yes. -[Alexandra] Good.

[narrator] On the orders of the High Court,

the family home has been put on the market.

And Alexandra’s been asked to drop her claim

on Sergei’s fortune

in return for a deal.

[Ivan] Why can’t we just put some butter?

[Alexandra] Because if you did, it wouldn’t mix in, would it?

[Alexandra] So the Russian government said to me,

‘Okay, if you agree to waive

your maintenance

and not claim your debt,

we will let you stay in the house for one year.’

What was I meant to do?

I literally-- I either signed the agreement

or I left the house the next day.

[narrator] But this deal with his enemy has simply

fanned the flames for Sergei.

[Sergei in Russian]

[somber solo piano music]

[narrator] Alexandra’s parents seem unsurprised

by the turn of events.

[interviewer] Should we have any sympathy for Sergei?

[Georgina] Yeah, no, I always feel sorry

for somebody who can’t,

you know, see their own children,

but on the other hand, he--

he’s brought the whole thing on himself.

It didn’t need to be like this.

You know, if he’d been remotely compromising

about the thing,

it could have worked out.

You know, Alexandra did always make it clear

that she couldn’t live in France.

But she said that she would take them there.

They could spend their holidays there.

But I think he thought

by cutting her off financially,

that she would be so desperate

that she would end up going there.

And that hasn’t happened.

And I think that has really surprised him, probably.

And it’s something that’s never happened to him before.

He’s never had anybody

not capitulate to...

you know,

what he wanted.

[somber solo piano music]

[interviewer] Do you think he still loves her?

Probably not.

-[interviewer] Probably not? -[Georgiana hums]

Probably now, he’d like to get revenge.

[narrator] Alexandra’s supporting herself

and the children

by writing and reviving

her old travel business.

But the one-year deal with Russia’s lawyers

is coming to an end,

and her time at the house

is running out.

[Alexandra] The house is on the market,

and people come and visit the whole time.

The Russian government, they said,

'You can stay in there as long as the house

doesn’t sell.'

So each month, I sign a document saying

I promise to get out by the 31st.

[interviewer] What’s your worst fear at the moment?

That we have nowhere to live.

That we have no money. I literally--

you know, it’s really, really difficult.

[Alexandra] I’ve really tried to shield children.

I’ve told them that...

the Russian government has taken the house.

But they know that I don’t know

where we’ll live.

They know that...

um...

Yeah, it is really difficult.

It’s a nightmare.

[crying] Sorry.

[narrator] An opportunity to make

some money had emerged

when Alexandra was approached by Russian TV,

asking her to tell her story.

-[crowd applauding] -[presenter in Russian]

[narrator] It was Channel One,

the premier channel of state-owned television,

Putin’s channel.

Alexandra was paid

a five-figure sum for her appearance.

She invited the presenter

to the family home.

[Alexandra in Russian]

[narrator] Inspired by shows like Jerry Springer,

Let Them Talk invites celebrity guests to come

before a studio audience and a panel

who pick over their personal lives

and then pass judgement.

[Alexandra] Before the programme,

Sergei had been telling a lot

of untrue things about me in the press,

that I worked for the KGB,

that I was only after his money,

that I kidnapped his children.

[Alexandra] You know, terrible things.

So I wanted to do it.

[presenter in Russian]

[Alexandra in Russian]

[presenter]

[Alexandra]

[crowd applauding]

[presenter]

[narrator] What Alexandra didn’t realise

was that she was walking into a trap.

[Alexandra]

[presenter]

-[Alexandra] -[snickering]

-[sound of disbelief] -[male panelist]

[presenter]

[Alexandra]

[presenter]

[audience applauding]

[presenter]

[Sergei in Russian]

[presenter]

[Sergei]

[presenter]

-[sniffs] -[Sergei]

[narrator] It was a dramatic fall from grace

for the former golden couple,

the fairy-tale

over.

-[crowd cheering] -[rink announcer] Your new...

champions!

[brass fanfare]

[narrator] Putin has now been in power for 20 years,

now not just a president

but a celebrity with adoring fans.

-[crowd cheering] -[announcer speaking in Russian]

[narrator] Enemies of the state

have found it hard to survive.

[airy string and balalaika music]

[pool balls clacking]

[narrator] Russia continues to pursue Sergei

for the missing billion dollars.

But after five years, Sergei’s lawsuit

for the loss of his assets has finally reached

the international courtroom.

Sergei Pugachev versus the Russian Federation.

-[thud] -[balls clack]

[narrator] It’s now just weeks until Sergei finds out

the result of his legal action.

Even if he wins,

it may take years

to get his money back.

[Luke] Sergei,

he’s in the South of France.

He told me he was down to his last 70 million dollars.

But actually, 70 million dollars doesn’t sound too bad.

[Luke] But generally,

if you’re an oligarch and you fall from power,

you can guarantee you'll spend the next 20 years

with your lawyers.

[narrator] Sergei now lives alone,

a decision he feels he was forced into

by the Russian state.

[Sergei in Russian]

[Sergei]

[narrator] Alone in the chateau,

Sergei has started to think

about life beyond the court case.

[Alexandra] Come on, darling.

You okay?

[Sergei in Russian]

[interviewer] How is that going to happen, do you think?

[translator]

[suspended string chords]

[Alexandra] There's mud everywhere. [laughs]

[narrator] These days, Alexandra and the children spend

whatever time they can at her cottage in Oxfordshire.

She’s been advised by a lawyer

not to take the children to France.

-[children laughing] -[interviewer] What do you tell

the children?

[Alexandra] It’s imperative you tell the truth.

Of course, they’ve asked me.

They’ve stopped asking now, but they did ask,

‘Why does he never come here?’

So I told them,

‘Well, he has a prison sentence here because...

he was in court, and they told him,

"You can’t leave the country," and he did.

So he would go to prison if he came here.’

And then they’ve said, ‘Well why can’t we go there?’

And I also told the truth. I said,

‘It’s dangerous.' You know, his life’s under threat.

[Alexandra] Keep the logs a-burning now.

[sparse guitar chords]

[Alexandra] My hand on my heart,

I have never said to my children

one bad word about him.

I haven’t told them

ever that he treated me badly.

Nothing.

Um--

[interviewer] They may see this film one day.

I know, but I’m going to obviously be

very, very careful about when they’re told.

Just say...

you know, 'He needs to sort out

this situation that he’s in,'

and 'It’s not your fault...

and maybe when you’re older,

you can go and find him yourself.'

[narrator] Alexandra has returned to her old life,

leading horse-riding expeditions across Kyrgyzstan

and making regular trips to Russia.

[Alexandra] I love Russia so much,

and...

weirdly, my relationship

with the Russian government is better [laughs lightly]

than it is with Sergei.

[narrator] She’s cast off the oligarch wardrobe

and the life that went with it.

[interviewer] Do you remember when you showed me

around through your place in London in 2015,

and you showed me your shoe cupboard

and your handbag cupboard?

[Alexandra] Actually, do you know what? I hate

all those things now. I just feel

they’re associated with a life I didn’t like.

[Alexandra] I find them vulgar.

I find they're just

not me.

[Alexandra] You know, as an adult, you can

lose yourself, and I really didn’t believe that.

I never thought...

ever thought I could lose myself.

But I'm 45. I'm not so old,

and, really, I have a whole life ahead of me.

I can go back to the things I love.

And this is who I am.

Sergei never, never

expected me to be strong enough

to stay on my own.

He always thought I would be

so desperate to be with his money and him

that I would follow him.

And actually, I’ve come through it.

And I have the strength to do it.

[closing theme music]