Vladimir Putin

His grandfather, Spiridon Putin (1879–1965), was a personal cook to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

Putin's birth was preceded by the deaths of two brothers: Albert, born in the 1930s, died in infancy, and Viktor, born in 1940, died of diphtheria and starvation in 1942 during the Siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany's forces in World War II.

Putin's mother was a factory worker, and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s.

During the early stage of Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union, his father served in the destruction battalion of the NKVD.

Putin's maternal grandmother was killed by the German occupiers of Tver region in 1941, and his maternal uncles disappeared on the Eastern Front during World War II.

Later, he was transferred to the regular army and was severely wounded in 1942.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is the President of Russia.

Putin was born on 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia), the youngest of three children of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin (1911–1999) and Maria Ivanovna Putina (née Shelomova; 1911–1998).

On 1 September 1960, Putin started at School No. 193 at Baskov Lane, near his home.

He was one of a few in his class of about 45 pupils who were not yet members of the Young Pioneer organization.

At the age of 12, he began to practise sambo and judo.

In his free time, he enjoyed reading the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Lenin.

Putin studied German at Saint Petersburg High School 281 and speaks both German and English as additional languages.

Putin studied law at the Leningrad State University named after Andrei Zhdanov (now Saint Petersburg State University) in 1970 and graduated in 1975.

His thesis was on "The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law".

Putin worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg.

While there, he was required to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU); he remained a member until it ceased to exist in 1991.

Putin met Anatoly Sobchak, an assistant professor who taught business law, and who later became the co-author of the Russian constitution and of corruption schemes in France.

Putin was influential in Sobchak's career in Saint Petersburg, and Sobchak was influential in Putin's career in Moscow.

In 1996, he moved to Moscow to join the administration of President Boris Yeltsin.

In 1997, he received a degree in economics (kandidat ekonomicheskikh nauk) at the Saint Petersburg Mining University for a thesis on energy dependencies and their instrumentalisation in foreign policy.

Putin has held continuous positions as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.

He briefly served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and then as secretary of the Security Council of Russia before being appointed prime minister in August 1999.

Following Yeltsin's resignation, Putin became acting president and, in less than four months, was elected to his first term as president.

He was subsequently reelected in 2004.

Due to constitutional limitations of two consecutive presidential terms, Putin served as prime minister again from 2008 to 2012 under Dmitry Medvedev.

He returned to the presidency in 2012, following an election marked by allegations of fraud and protests, and was reelected in 2018.

In April 2021, after a referendum, he signed into law constitutional amendments that included one allowing him to run for reelection twice more, potentially extending his presidency to 2036.

During Putin's initial presidential tenure, the Russian economy grew on average by seven percent per year, driven by economic reforms and a fivefold increase in the price of oil and gas.

Additionally, Putin led Russia in a conflict against Chechen separatists, reestablishing federal control over the region.

While serving as prime minister under Medvedev, he oversaw a military conflict with Georgia and enacted military and police reforms.

In his third presidential term, Russia annexed Crimea and supported a war in eastern Ukraine through several military incursions, resulting in international sanctions and a financial crisis in Russia.

He also ordered a military intervention in Syria to support his ally Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war, ultimately securing permanent naval bases in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In his fourth presidential term, he launched a significant invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which prompted international condemnation and led to expanded sanctions.

In September 2022, he announced a partial mobilization and forcibly annexed four Ukrainian oblasts into Russia.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes related to his alleged criminal responsibility for illegal child abductions during the war.

In June 2023, he survived the Wagner Group rebellion.

Under Putin's rule, the Russian political system has been transformed into an authoritarian dictatorship.

His rule has been marked by endemic corruption and widespread human rights violations, including the imprisonment and suppression of political opponents, intimidation and censorship of independent media in Russia, and a lack of free and fair elections.

Putin's Russia has consistently received low scores on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, The Economist Democracy Index, Freedom House's Freedom in the World index, and the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index.