2000-2008, 2012- Leader of the Russian Federation.
Vladimir Putin’s term has marked, after ten years, the comeback of a centralized state and an autocrat ruler. He is admired by some, feared by many.
Background
Born 1952.
Vladimir Putin was born in Leningrad to a war veteran and a factory worker. His grandfather had been Lenin’s cook.
Career
Putin studied law at the Leningrad State University and joined the KGB in 1975. He worked as a spy in Dresden, East Germany, where he recruited informers. As a KGB colonel, he saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.
After Putin returned to St. Petersburg, he became a KGB co-worker on the election campaign team of Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg. After the August Putsch of 1991, Putin resigned from KGB.
He became the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and was responsible for organizing privatization and humanitarian aid from Germany. His work during these times is full of controversy, as he used his links with organized crime, and his personal friends and business contacts profited a great deal.
Rise to power
Putin left for Moscow in 1996 and became a property manager for the Kremlin. There he was sighted by Yeltsin’s inner circle. He was considered trustworthy and obedient, and was appointed head of the FSB.
As Head of the FSB, Putin successfully framed the new General Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov, who had started investigating corruption in the Yeltsin family.
As a reward, Yeltsin named Putin his new Prime Minister after Sergey Stepashin was sacked in August 1999. On 31 Januray 1999, Putin became the new President.
President
To everybody’s surprise, that obscure KGB colonel did not remain obedient to his oligarch patrons. He immediately set his own rules and began centralizing power.
After 14 years of holding supreme power, Vladimir Putin is considered the world’s most influential man, and with over 20 billion dollars of dark revenue, he is also one of the richest men on earth.
Vladimir Putin
2000-2008, 2012- Leader of the Russian Federation.
Vladimir Putin’s term has marked, after ten years, the comeback of a centralized state and an autocrat ruler. He is admired by some, feared by many.
Background
Born 1952.
Vladimir Putin was born in Leningrad to a war veteran and a factory worker. His grandfather had been Lenin’s cook.
Career
Putin studied law at the Leningrad State University and joined the KGB in 1975. He worked as a spy in Dresden, East Germany, where he recruited informers. As a KGB colonel, he saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.
After Putin returned to St. Petersburg, he became a KGB co-worker on the election campaign team of Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg. After the August Putsch of 1991, Putin resigned from KGB.
He became the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and was responsible for organizing privatization and humanitarian aid from Germany. His work during these times is full of controversy, as he used his links with organized crime, and his personal friends and business contacts profited a great deal.
Rise to power
Putin left for Moscow in 1996 and became a property manager for the Kremlin. There he was sighted by Yeltsin’s inner circle. He was considered trustworthy and obedient, and was appointed head of the FSB.
As Head of the FSB, Putin successfully framed the new General Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov, who had started investigating corruption in the Yeltsin family.
As a reward, Yeltsin named Putin his new Prime Minister after Sergey Stepashin was sacked in August 1999. On 31 Januray 1999, Putin became the new President.
President
To everybody’s surprise, that obscure KGB colonel did not remain obedient to his oligarch patrons. He immediately set his own rules and began centralizing power.
After 14 years of holding supreme power, Vladimir Putin is considered the world’s most influential man, and with over 20 billion dollars of dark revenue, he is also one of the richest men on earth.