Putin's Russia Exposed - A Biography of the Most Powerful Man in Russia If a war between the western nations breaks out again it could very well start in the east. The First World War began with the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the town of Sarajevo, in modern day Bosnia- Herzegovina. The Second World War started with the German invasion of Poland in 1939. The state of Ukraine, also in Eastern Europe, is also a cause of tension. In this case the relations of the United States and their European Allies on the one side, and the Russian Federation and its allies on the other, have been sorely tested by events in that country. The man behind much of the tension is one Vladimir Putin. Revered in Mother Russia, reviled in the West. But what's really going on with Putin, and the country he has come to dominate?