Eight years ago, Russia watchers strained to answer a simple but pressing question: Who is Vladimir Putin?

Little was known about the slight, former KGB agent who had suddenly been elevated to the presidency. Fast forward to 2008 and the situation is eerily familiar. Only this time Kremlinologists are falling over themselves to work out who Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s likely successor, really is. Besides the fact that he is a diminutive, laid-back former lawyer from St Petersburg who has mastered the art of imitating the clipped way Putin talks, his biography offers few clues.

As the clock counts down to March 2, the date of the presidential election Medvedev is expected to win, the questions are piling up. Is he really a liberal? Will he be a real president or a Putin puppet? Does he really have no connection with Russia’s feared security services? There is no shortage of experts with ready-made answers to these questions. But if the past few months have shown anything it is that only a small clique in the Kremlin really know what the future holds. The real Medvedev is only likely to stand up if and when he assumes the presidency, and only then will we know if he really is the master of the Kremlin – or simply his master’s voice. 

Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin famously suggested that cinema was the most important art form. He was acutely aware of its power to shape people’s views. If alive today, Lenin would doubtless be amused to see how enthusiastically his Kremlin successors were following in his “agitprop” cinematic footsteps. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, films carrying state-sponsored messages are back in a big way, and with the Kremlin’s petrodollars, they are being used to influence a new generation of minds.

One such film is a blockbuster called 1612. Superficially, the film focuses on a period of Russian history four centuries ago known as “the time of troubles” when a foreign army was driven out of Moscow by a people’s army. The victory paved the way for the enthronement of Tsar Mikhail Romanov whose family dynasty ruled Russia for the next 300 years.

The movie’s Kremlin-inspired subtext is unsubtle: 21st century Russia needs a strong Tsar to keep meddling foreigners at bay and make Russia great again. Visually, 1612 looks nothing like Sergei Eisenstein’s famous agitprop flick Battleship Potemkin. Aimed at teenagers, it was shot in a style reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

But the aim was the same. Lenin may be dead (albeit not buried) but his methods of cultivating public opinion are not.

These were on show too in another recent film called The Apocalypse Code that, like others before it, glorifies Russia’s spies. The film has a female sex symbol playing Russia’s super spy who saves the world from nuclear Armageddon – with a pout and a dizzying selection of skimpy outfits.

Backed by the Kremlin, promotional posters were plastered throughout Moscow. But the fi......