On October 7, Vladimir Putin turned 72 years old, of which he spent 25 years at the peak of power in Russia. This December 31, the Russian president reached a quarter of a century of absolute power. In 25 years he has been sworn in as president five times (and his interim term as Prime Minister). It is a third of his life, which began on October 7, 1952 in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg).
At the age of 16, he went to the KGB headquarters because I wanted to be a spy. After graduating in Law, in 1975 he was recruited. As an agent, he worked in East Germany for 16 years, until 1990.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall he returned to the Soviet Union. In a 2017 interview with Oliver Stone, Putin said that he resigned from the KGB after the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev because he did not agree with what happened and He did not want to be part of the intelligence in the new administration.
In 1990 he met Anatoly Sobchak, mayor of Leningrad, who would be his mentor. In 1994, Putin was already first vice president of the Government of Saint Petersburg. He moved to Moscow and assumed different responsibilities in the Russian Administration.
Yeltsin’s favor
In 1997, President Boris Yeltsin appointed him deputy chief of the Presidential General Staff. A year later he was chosen as director of the Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the KGB. Putin’s ascension continued on August 9, 1999: elected as one of the first three deputy prime ministers and, that same day, he was appointed interim prime minister of the Government of the Russian Federation.
On August 16, the State Duma appointed him prime minister. It was the fourth option of the then Russian president, who in 18 months had dismissed three other heads of government. “We have moved away from the edge of the precipice,” Putin said, alluding to the situation in which Russia found itself when Yeltsin handed over power to him on December 31, 1999.
Year 2000, arrival to the presidency
Upon leaving the Kremlin, Yeltsin told Putin: “Take care of Russia!” He assumed the scepter of a troubled Russia, in the middle of a serious economic crisis and in the middle of the second Chechen war. In 2000, Putin won the presidential election and then, re-election in 2004.
“I have found him very direct, a person worthy of credit… I have been able to see the meaning of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country.”
“I have looked this man in the eyes. I have found him very direct, a credible person. We have had a very good conversation. I have been able to see the meaning of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country, “I very much appreciate the sincere dialogue,” said the president of the United States, George W. Bush, when he met Putin. But that understanding with Washington and the West did not last long.
Because there has been more than one Putin, say those who have known him in this quarter of a century. “The Putin with whom I met, with whom I did good business, with whom I established a NATO-Russia Council, is very, very different from this almost megalomaniac of the current moment”former NATO chief George Robertson told the journalist of the BBCSteve Rosenberg.
Change the law to be like the tsars
In 2007 his second presidential term came to an end and the 1993 Russian Constitution did not allow him to continue in power. With its popularity skyrocketing after years of economic growth, In 2008 he presented Dmitri Medvedev as his successor.. Thus, Putin was formally prime minister for four years, but in reality he remained “the boss.”
The Putin with whom I established a NATO-Russia Council is very, very different from this almost megalomaniac of now.”
Medvedev reformed the Constitution to extend the presidential term from four to six years. In 2012, Putin ran for a third term and won in the first round. In 2018 he won again (he obtained more than 70% of the votes, although with the lowest participation in history).
And so that everything would remain tied until his death, Putin proposed in 2020 to vote to amend the Constitution so that could continue leading the country until 2036after eliminating the limit of two presidential terms for a candidate. “Putin relies on the Church to convince the people that he has a quasi-divine mandate, like the tsars,” says EFE.
Absolute power
Last March he was re-elected by another six-year term. The collegiate decisions, which characterized the Central Committee and the Politburo in Soviet times, have been replaced by a Security Council in which there is no room for dissent. The Kremlin party and Parliament are mere troupes.
Putin has exercised absolute power; promoted a messianic Russian nationalism; eliminated all his enemies (opponents like Navalni, writers, artists, journalists, activists and scientists); shown a blind faith in the Orthodox Church; declared several wars and annexed territories.
The Russian president has become worse over time, both for his compatriots and for other nations. “Putin seems moved by resentmentout of a widespread feeling that Russia has been lied to and disrespected for years, that its security concerns have been dismissed by the West,” summarizes Rosenberg, current editor of the BBC for Russia.
The invasion of Ukraine
The nature of your personalist regime has been accentuated since 2012 and especially during the coronavirus pandemic. “Locked with the maps of imperial Russia in his bunker… The result was the first invasion of a European country since World War II.”
The invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Putin believed the erroneous reports from his intelligence services that it would fall in three days, as the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, would flee after the first shot. As Chancellor Angela Merkel said, Russian President I had lost my sense of reality.
“I think Vladimir Putin has a very thin skin and enormous ambition for his country. The Soviet Union was recognized as the second superpower in the world. Russia cannot claim anything in that regard. And I think that ate away at his ego.“, in the words of George Robertson.
So the Ukrainian blitzkrieg was not. Instead, a drain on men and resourcesborn from a corrupt regime and Army. The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, understood this and tried to turn the situation around with an armed uprising, which woke many Russians from their lethargy. Prigozhin died in a plane crash in unclear circumstances.
The military industry as a locomotive
The Putin’s interference in economic management has been increasing with the passing of the years. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the avalanche of sanctions from the West severely affected finance, oil and gas exports, and virtually every sector of the economy. The president had to change the economic model and drastically increase defense spending. And so the arms industry is now the locomotive of the Russian economy.
Putin says that Russia has managed to survive the effects of the sanctions and that the economy is stable. But the country continues to witness a sustained decline in the value of the ruble and rising inflation. But the Russian president maintains that he is “doing everything possible… to ensure that Russia would be an independent sovereign state.”
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