Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin is a former Russian intelligence officer and a politician who has served as president of Russia from 1999 to 2008 and from 2012 to the present. He was also the country’s prime minister in 1999 and from 2008 to 2012.

In the two decades of Vladimir Putin’s reign, he has consolidated his rule and projected to the Russian people an image of Russia as a global power. He turned Russia from a nascent democratic state into an autocratic one, expanded Russia’s influence in the Middle East, strengthened Russian relations with China, and displayed a willingness to use force to achieve his goals, as in his annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

When Vladimir Putin was named president in 1999, Russia’s constitution limited the president to two consecutive terms. That’s why, after his second term ended in 2008, he served as prime minister before becoming president again in 2012. However, in January 2020 Putin drafted a constitutional amendment that would allow him to remain president for two more terms. It was included in a package of amendments that was approved by the Russian legislature and, in July 2020, by Russian voters in a national referendum.