Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born October 7, 1952, Leningrad, USSR) is a Russian statesman and

political figure. Acting President of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the State Council of the Russian
Federation and the Security Council of the Russian Federation; Supreme Commander of the Armed
Forces of the Russian Federation since May 7, 2012. Previously, he served as president from May 7, 2000
to May 7, 2008, and also in 1999-2000 and 2008-2012 he served as chairman of the government of the
Russian Federation.

Graduate of the Faculty of Law of the Leningrad State University (LGU). For 16 years he served as a KGB
foreign intelligence officer, including 6 years in Dresden[⇨]. Upon his return to Leningrad, he worked as
an assistant to the rector of the Leningrad State University, then as an adviser to the chairman of the
Leningrad City Council, Anatoly Sobchak [⇨]. Having resigned from the KGB on August 20, 1991, he
continued to work in the mayor's office of St. Petersburg. After Sobchak's defeat in the 1996
gubernatorial election, he moved to Moscow, where he was appointed deputy chief of the president of
the Russian Federation [⇨]. In 1997, Putin received a Ph.D. in economics. After being at the head of the
Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and as Secretary of the Security Council in August
1999, he headed the government[⇨].

He became the first person of the state on December 31, 1999, when, after the resignation of Russian
President Boris Yeltsin, he was appointed acting president[⇨]. He was first elected President of Russia on
March 26, 2000, and then re-elected in 2004, 2012 and 2018[⇨]. Before the 2012 elections, the
presidential term was extended from 4 to 6 years. After the adoption of amendments to the Constitution
of the Russian Federation, he received the right to stand as a candidate in the presidential elections in
2024[⇨]. In fact, he has been leading Russia, according to various estimates, since 1999[7] or since
2000[8]. In September 2017, Putin became the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin[9][10].

During the first presidential term of Vladimir Putin, the Russian economy after reforms and a five-fold
increase in oil and gas prices[11][12] grew by an average of 7% per year[13]. Under him, Russia won the
Second Chechen War. As prime minister under President Dmitry Medvedev, Putin oversaw the war with
Georgia and reforms of the army and police.

In 2014, Putin ruled over the capture and largely unrecognized annexation of Crimea, which belongs to
Ukraine[14][15], and Russia also intervened in a violent conflict that escalated into a war in the Donbass.
In 2015, Russia launched a military operation in Syria.

In February 2022, a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, drawing international condemnation. A
number of states have introduced additional comprehensive sanctions against Russia and personally
against Putin. In the fall of 2022, Russia began mobilization and annexed the territories of Ukraine
occupied by it[⇨]. On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest
warrant for Vladimir Putin on suspicion of illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during the invasion of
Ukraine[⇨].

Under Putin's leadership, Russia experienced a rollback from democracy and a transition to
authoritarianism. Experts and human rights organizations criticize the current Russian regime for
corruption, violation of human rights, persecution, imprisonment and murder of political opponents,
restriction of freedom of the press, lack of free and fair elections