Russia changed its constitution last year at Putin's behest allowing him to run for two more six-year terms in the Kremlin, and potentially remain president until The Kremlin is at a delicate political juncture with its relations with the West badly strained and its oil-dependent economy emerging from the pandemic with high inflation and a weak rouble, sensitive issues for voters. Russia holds parliamentary elections in September that are seen as a dry-run for the presidential election.
In the run-up, authorites have cracked down hard on the opposition and outlawed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's network as "extremist". He admits only that Russian "volunteers" have gone there to help.
Mr Putin fumed over what he called the "coup" that forced Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia in February The sanctions blocked Western travel and financial services for many of Mr Putin's aides. Mr Putin appears to relish his macho image, helped by election stunts like flying into Chechnya in a fighter jet in and appearing at a Russian bikers' festival by the Black Sea in The Night Wolves bikers' gang played a prominent role in whipping up patriotic fervour during Russia's takeover of Crimea in But Mr Putin has also shown a gentler side on Russian state media, cuddling his dogs and helping to care for endangered Amur tigers.
That figure would be envied by many Western politicians, though it could suggest that many simply see Mr Putin as a safe bet.
He scored political points for keeping Russia relatively stable after the post-communist chaos of the s. Besides restoring widespread national pride, Mr Putin has allowed a middle class to emerge and prosper, though Moscow still dominates the economy and there is much rural poverty.
His popularity among older Russians is markedly stronger than among the young. The latter have grown up under Mr Putin and many of them appear to thirst for change. Thousands of young Russians demonstrated nationwide in January in support of Alexei Navalny, Mr Putin's arch-critic, who was arrested immediately after returning from Berlin. They were Russia's biggest street protests in recent years, and the police cracked down hard, detaining several thousand.
Navalny made a name for himself by exposing rampant corruption, labelling Mr Putin's United Russia as "the party of crooks and thieves". Millions watched a Navalny video about "Putin's palace", a luxury Black Sea estate allegedly gifted to Mr Putin by wealthy friends. Arkady Rotenberg, a billionaire close to Mr Putin, later claimed to be the owner.
Navalny is now in poor health in jail, convicted controversially over an old embezzlement case. His Anti-Corruption Foundation FBK and Western governments called the trial politically motivated and the European Court of Human Rights ruled he should be released from jail because of the risk to his life. Navalny is another key reason why Mr Putin's relations with the West are so bad now. Mr Putin headed the FSB before becoming president.
Novichok - a Russian weapons-grade toxin - was also used to poison Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in England in Russian state agents were blamed for that too. The Skripals survived, but a local woman died. Mr Putin denied any links to those and other attacks on prominent political opponents. Vladimir Putin grew up in a tough, communal housing block in Leningrad - now St Petersburg - and got into fights with local boys who were often bigger and stronger.
That drove him to take up judo. According to the Kremlin website, Mr Putin wanted to work in Soviet intelligence "even before he finished school". It was better to fight "terrorists" in Syria, he explained, than to wait for them to strike in Russia. He also used the crude language of a street fighter when defending his military onslaught against separatist rebels in Chechnya, vowing to wipe them out "even in the toilet".
The mainly Muslim North Caucasus republic was left devastated by heavy fighting in , in which thousands of civilians died.
Georgia was another Caucasus flashpoint for Mr Putin. In his forces routed the Georgian army and took over two breakaway regions - Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And it showed Mr Putin's readiness to undermine pro-Western leaders in former Soviet states. Putin still in fashion 15 years on. Vladimir Putin's formative German years.
Church lends weight to Putin patriotism. Mr Putin's entourage is a fabulously wealthy elite and he himself is believed to have a huge fortune. He keeps his family and financial affairs well shielded from publicity. The Panama Papers leaks in exposed a murky network of offshore companies owned by a longstanding friend of Mr Putin - concert cellist Sergei Roldugin. Mr Putin and his wife of Lyudmila got divorced in after nearly 30 years of marriage.
However, in response to what many perceived as Russia's recently passed anti-gay legislation, the threat of international boycotts arose. In October , Putin tried to allay some of these concerns, saying in an interview broadcast on Russian television that "We will do everything to make sure that athletes, fans and guests feel comfortable at the Olympic Games regardless of their ethnicity, race or sexual orientation.
In terms of security for the event, Putin implemented new measures aimed at cracking down on Muslim extremists, and in November reports surfaced that saliva samples had been collected from some Muslim women in the North Caucasus region. The samples were ostensibly to be used to gather DNA profiles, in an effort to combat female suicide bombers known as "black widows. Shortly after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics, amidst widespread political unrest in Ukraine, which resulted in the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych, Putin sent Russian troops into Crimea, a peninsula in the country's northeast coast of the Black Sea.
Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations, Yuriy Sergeyev, claimed that approximately 16, troops invaded the territory, and Russia's actions caught the attention of several European countries and the United States, who refused to accept the legitimacy of a referendum in which the majority of the Crimean population voted to secede from Ukraine and reunite with Russia.
Putin defended his actions, insisting that the troops sent into Ukraine were only meant to enhance Russia's military defenses within the country — referring to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which has its headquarters in Crimea.
He also vehemently denied accusations by other nations, particularly the United States, that Russia intended to engage Ukraine in war. He went on to claim that although he was granted permission from Russia's upper house of Parliament to use force in Ukraine, he found it unnecessary. Putin also wrote off any speculation that there would be a further incursion into Ukrainian territory, saying, "Such a measure would certainly be the very last resort.
The following day, it was announced that Putin had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In September , Russia surprised the world by announcing it would begin strategic airstrikes in Syria. Despite government officials' assertions that the military actions were intended to target the extremist Islamic State, which made significant advances in the region due to the power vacuum created by Syria's ongoing civil war, Russia's true motives were called into question, with many international analysts and government officials claiming that the airstrikes were in fact aimed at the rebel forces attempting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad's historically repressive regime.
In late October , Putin was personally involved in another alarming form of aerial warfare when he oversaw a late-night military drill that resulted in the launch of four ballistic missiles across the country. The drill came during a period of escalating tensions in the region, with Russian neighbor North Korea also drawing attention for its missile tests and threats to engage the U.
In December , Putin announced he was ordering Russian forces to begin withdrawing from Syria, saying the country's two-year campaign to destroy ISIS was complete, though he left open the possibility of returning if terrorist violence resumed in the area. Despite the declaration, Pentagon spokesman Robert Manning was hesitant to endorse that view of events, saying, "Russian comments about removal of their forces do not often correspond with actual troop reductions.
Months prior to the U. In December unnamed senior CIA officials further concluded "with a high level of confidence" that Putin was personally involved in intervening in the U. Election Day were designed to undermine Clinton's campaign in favor of her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Putin denied any such attempts to disrupt the U.
Underscoring their attempts to thaw public relations, the Kremlin in late revealed that a terror attack had been thwarted in St. Petersburg, thanks to intelligence provided by the CIA. Around that time, Putin reported at his annual end-of-year press conference that he would seek a new six-year term as president in early as an independent candidate, signaling he was ending his longtime association with the United Russia party.
Department of Justice announced the indictments of 12 Russian operatives on charges relating to interference in the U. Regardless, Trump suggested he was satisfied with his counterpart's "strong and powerful" denial in a joint news conference and praised Putin's offer to submit the 12 indicted agents to questioning with American witnesses present.
In a subsequent interview with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, Putin seemingly defended the hacking of the DNC server by suggesting that no false information was planted in the process.
He also rejected the idea that he had compromising information about Trump, saying that the businessman "was of no interest for us" before announcing his presidential campaign, and notably refused to touch a copy of the indictments offered to him by Wallace. In March , toward the end of his third term, Putin boasted of new weaponry that would render NATO defenses "completely worthless," including a low-flying nuclear-capable cruise missile with "unlimited" range and another one capable of traveling at hypersonic speed.
His demonstration included video animation of attacks on the United States. Not long afterward, a two-hour documentary, titled Putin , was posted to several social media pages and a pro-Kremlin YouTube account. Designed to showcase the president in a strong yet humane light, the doc featured Putin sharing the story of how he ordered a hijacked plane shot down to head off a bomb scare at the Sochi Olympics, as well as recollections of his grandfather's days as a cook for Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.
On March 18, , the fourth anniversary of the country's seizure of Crimea, Russian citizens overwhelmingly elected Putin to a fourth presidential term, with 67 percent of the electorate turning out to award him more than 76 percent of the vote.
The divided opposition stood little chance against the popular leader, his closest competitor notching around 13 percent of the vote. Little was expected to change regarding Putin's strategies for rebuilding the country as a global power, though the start of his final term set off questions about his successor, and whether he would affect constitutional change in an attempt to remain in office indefinitely.
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