Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin , 1952-, Russian government official and political leader, b. Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). After graduating from the Leningrad State Univ. law school in 1975 (he also holds a doctorate in economics), he served in the KGB for 15 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. From 1990 to 1996 he held several posts in the Leningrad (from 1991, St. Petersburg) city government. Moving to Moscow and the national government in 1996, he held high staff positions in the Yeltsin administration and in 1998 became head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's successor.

Regarded as intelligent, tough, and hard-working, Putin was chosen by Yeltsin to succeed Sergei Stepashin as prime minister in Aug., 1999. Putin quickly became popular with many Russians for his September invasion of Chechnya in response to terrorism and the invasion of Dagestan by Chechen militants. After parties aligned with Putin won solid support in the Dec., 1999, parliamentary elections, Yeltsin resigned, and Putin became acting president. In the elections of Mar., 2000, Putin bested ten other candidates to become Russia's president.

Putin moved quickly to reassert the central government's authority over the various republics, regions, and other administrative units and has sought to exert control over elements of the independent media. He also has worked to revamp, and reduce the size of, the military. He won enactment of liberal economic reforms and ratification of international arms agreements, while also renewing ties with former Soviet client states and maintaining Russia's strong opposition to proposed U.S. ballistic missile defenses (see Strategic Defense Initiative ).

Although Putin has been, in the main, popular with the Russian public, his reputation suffered when he was perceived to have acted belatedly after the Russian submarine Kursk sank in Aug., 2000. By the end of his second year in office, however, the Russian president's position had visibly strengthened, as he became apparently successful in stabilizing the government and the economy, the latter achieved in part through banking, labor, and private-property reforms and in part through a fortuitous rise in oil prices (Russia's principal export). Legal reforms gave greater protection to the accused and increased powers to judges, bringing Russian judicial practice more in line with that of the West. In 2001 and 2002, Putin criticized, but accepted, the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty as it proceeded with its development of its missile defense system, while signing a treaty reducing the number of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads and establishing closer relations with the United States and NATO.

Many reforms that had been enacted faltered in their enforcement in the second half of Putin's term, or were not built upon, and Russia's regions and provinces managed to resist central government control in many instances. Putin was reelected in Mar., 2004, in an election that European observers criticized as unfair. Putin subsequently obtained changes that allowed him to appoint regional and provincial governors, increasing the central government's control over the federation's constituents, and a number of republics and other ethnic areas were merged into their surrounding regions. Chechnya, however, remained an ongoing problem. Putin's second term was marked also by increasing government control over Russian oil and gas (often obtained through questionable legal means), the use of economic retaliation against nations that clashed politically with Russia, and the gradual contraction of press freedoms. Relations with the NATO and Western nations, especially the United States and Great Britain, became more confrontational during the same period. In Dec., 2007, he was elected to the State Duma on the United Russia ticket but postponed taking his seat. Dmitri Medvedev , Putin's handpicked successor, was elected president in Mar., 2008, and Putin became prime minister again and chairman of the United Russia party when Medvedev assumed the presidency in May.

Bibliography: See his First Person (tr. 2000).

Putin, Vladimir (1952– ) Russian statesman, prime minister (1999–2000), president (2000– ). He served for the KGB in East Germany until 1989, and became head of its successor organization in 1998. When Boris Yeltsin resigned in 1999, Putin became acting president. His strong support for the war in Chechenia earned him a comfortable victory in the ensuing presidential elections.

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Putin, Vladimir (b. 7 Oct 1952). President of Russia, 2000–  Born in Leningrad, he studied law and in 1975 entered the foreign section of the KGB. He rose through its ranks, but in 1992 he quit to become adviser to the Mayor of St Petersburg. In 1996 he joined the staff of President Yeltsin, who in 1998 appointed him head of the Russian intelligence services. In 1999 Yeltsin appointed him Premier, and he succeeded him at the end of the year in a deal which granted the corrupt Yeltsin immunity from any future prosecution. In 2000 he won the presidential elections in the first round. Despite having been a relative political outsider, he proved adept at not offending too many entrenched interests at once. He has favoured economic reform, drastic military reform, and the withdrawal of the overstretched Russian forces from overseas. At the same time, he was slow to pursue high-level corruption in public administration. He reduced freedom of speech by cracking down on private TV channels and newspapers critical of the government. Moreover, he was responsible for many human rights violations committed by the Russian army inside Chechnya. However, he did bring relative political and economic stability to Russia after a decade of internal turmoil. This, together with his control of the media, ensured the victory of the parties supporting him in the 2003 Duma elections.

In foreign policy, he became an important, and cunning, ally of many Western leaders. He enjoyed good relations with George W. Bush and used the latter's War on Terrorism to justify the brutality used against what he termed the Chechen ‘terrorists’ inside and outside Chechnya. His understanding with Bush did not stop him from opposing the US-led Iraq War, in which he shared French and German scepticism at the legitimacy of the invasion. Good relations with European leaders brought their own reward. In 2002, Putin negotiated very generous terms with Germany's Chancellor Schröder for the settlement of long-standing government debts incurred before 1990 to (East) Germany.