Putin: From Russia’s KGB to a presidency defined by war

Vladimir Putin has been in power since 2000, longer than any Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. As he prepares for a fifth term as president, aged 71, there is little to stop him staying on, if he wants, until 2036. It was almost by accident that this little-known, former KGB man was hand-picked for the Kremlin. He often justifies his actions with an outlandish perception of history and a keen resentment of Nato.

He falsely claimed that Ukraine was an artificial state populated by neo-Nazis. Determined to prevent Ukraine from leaving Russia#39;s orbit, he unleashed Europe’s biggest war since World War Two. Vladimir Putin was born seven years after the end of World War Two. He had a tough childhood that would affect the rest of his life.

Angela Merkel is once reputed to have described him as out of touch with reality and #34;in another world. The young Putin got into fights with local boys who were often bigger and stronger. He took up judo, which he continued as a black belt during his presidency. Putin described the rat lashing out and throwing itself at him: #34;There, on the landing, I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the word cornered.

Vladimir Putin was brought up on Soviet TV shows such as The Sword and the Shield. He was posted to the East German city of Dresden in 1985 where he saw first-hand the collapse of a communist state in 1989. When a small group approached his building, he warned them off. When he called a Red Army tank unit for protection, he realised Russia was of no help.

He was given the rank of lieutenant-general, but never excelled at it. He is still close to some of his former colleagues, who he trusts with his money. He has given them a $3. 5bn contract to build a bridge from Crimea to the Baltic Sea.

From 1991, Vladimir Putin became deputy to the new mayor of Leningrad. When Sobchak was voted out, his deputy was headhunted to work in the presidential administration in Moscow. He spent a short time as head of the Federal Security Service, which replaced the KGB. Then asked to report to the president as secretary of the Security Council.

Yeltsin sacked his prime minister, replacing him with a little-known 46-year-old protege. Putin had shown himself to be a liberal and a democrat, who wanted to continue market reforms. Valentin Yumashev told Yeltsin he would make a #34;superb candidate. His first domestic challenge came in 2000, when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea, killing all 118 crew members.

Putin responded with a full-scale land offensive to recapture the mainly Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya from separatist rebels. He won his first presidential term three months later. Russian president Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000. He has been in power since 2000.

Putin’s government has been accused of corruption. The Kremlin denies this, saying the allegations are based on hearsay. The government is trying to find out who is behind the allegations. The investigation is expected to take several years.

He was one of the first foreign leaders to ring President George W Bush after the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the US. He even helped the US launch its ensuing campaign in Afghanistan. But Vladimir Putin soon became disillusioned with the US and its allies. Relations with the UK soured when a former KGB agent was murdered in London using radioactive polonium-210.

Putin made his feelings towards the US clear on a visit to the Munich Security Conference in 2007. It was an icy reminder of the old Cold War and an expression of Russia#39;s anger that the US was continuing to plan for a missile defence system in Central Europe. In 2008, Russian forces routed the Georgian army and took over two of its breakaway regions. Putin steered through a law in 2021 that reset his limit to zero.

It means he can head straight into a fifth term, and even a sixth. In 2011, the biggest mass protests since the collapse of the Soviet Union erupted. Among the protest leaders was Boris Nemtsov, a liberal, former deputy prime minister in the 1990s. Putin has secured the support of the Orthodox Church and he has built a National Guard, or Rosgvardiya, that reports direct to him.

Russia#39;s media is largely pliant and controlled by the Kremlin, which has become consumed by an all-out war in Ukraine. 40% of budget spending in 2024 will go on defence and security. President Putin diverts much of the economy to the war in Ukraine. War started with the seizure of Ukraine#39;s Crimean peninsula in 2014.

But it was snuffed out and Prigozhin was later killed in a mysterious plane crash. Civil rights group Memorial has devoted decades to remembering the victims of Soviet repression. Its veteran co-president Oleg Orlov was jailed for this description of the Putin era. He writes long historical essays, gives speeches and lectures.

But it is a distorted, selective history that brooks no dissent.