The Puppet Master is a series that gets to the bewildering heart of contemporary Russia by exploring the fortunes of a secretive, complicated and controversial man called Vladislav Surkov.
bbc 
Reporter Gabriel Gatehouse speaks fluent Russian and has access to a vast cache of leaked emails from Surkov’s Kremlin office. Using these, plus archive and sources gained over a decade of covering Russia and its wars, Gatehouse goes in search of the man pulling the strings. The journey is by turns dramatic, surprising and surreal, ranging from the battlefield to the theatre and the Kremlin itself. The destination? The post-truth world we inhabit today.
As the former deputy head of the presidential administration, later deputy prime minister and then assistant to the president on foreign affairs, Surkov has directed Russian society like one great reality show. He claps once and a new political party appears. He claps again and creates Nashi, the Russian equivalent of the Hitler Youth, who are trained for street battles with potential pro-democracy supporters and burn books by unpatriotic writers on Red Square. atlantic
The height of Serebrennikov’s artistic dalliance with Surkov, and the universe he represented, came in 2011, when Serebrennikov staged a theatrical production of “Almost Zero,” a novel likely written by Surkov under a thinly disguised pen name. In his book on Putin-era Russia, “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible.” newyorker
Surkov is perceived by many to be a key figure with much power and influence in the administration of Vladimir Putin. According to The Moscow Times, this perception is not dependent on the official title Surkov might hold at any one time in the Putin government. BBC documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis credits Surkov's blend of theater and politics with keeping Putin, and Putin's chosen successors, in power since 2000. wikipedia