Vladimir Putin Height, Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Vladimir Putin

• Putin was born into a poor Soviet family; he lived in a communal apartment block with his parents.

• His father was a Second World War veteran who served in a submarine fleet. He also fought the Battle of Stalingrad and was disabled after being injured by a grenade blast.

• Putin had two older brothers who died in infancy during the invasion of the USSR by Nazi Germany.

• He lost a lot of relatives during the Second World War. His grandmother was killed by the German Army, while his paternal uncles fought and died in Stalingrad. Their bodies were never found.

• In 1960, Putin started his schooling. He was one of the few children in his class who had not joined the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, which was mandatory for membership.
  

  A photo of Vladimir Putin taken when he was ten years old in 1962

• Putin’s inclination towards combat sports arose at a young age. At 12, he started attending sambo and judo classes. He reportedly has broken numerous records in the combat sport.
  

  A photo of Vladimir Putin taken while he was undergoing a Judo session

• He developed an interest in reading at a young age. He liked reading books written by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Lenin. Despite developing a likeness for reading, Putin did not do well in academics. As per his report card, the teachers described him as talkative, mischievous, and rude.

• He was once demoted in class after being disqualified from the exams as he was caught passing notes to other students. He even used to fight and quarrel with his gym teacher.

• He started learning Judo at the age of 11, and at the age of 14, he started learning Sambo, a Russian martial arts form.

• Putin earned a Black Belt in Judo at the age of 18. According to him, he was slow to start puberty and to avoid bullying by other male teenagers who achieved puberty before him, he learned this form of defence.
  

  Vladimir Putin posing for a photo with his black belt

• Putin attended Saint Petersburg High School 281, where he underwent a German language immersion program. Due to this, he gained fluency in the language and is often spotted giving interviews in the language.
  

  A photo of Vladimir Putin taken when he was studying at the Saint Petersburg High School 281

• For around 16 years Putin worked as an officer in the KGB (Committee for State Security), spying for the ‘secret police agency’ in East Germany between 1975 and 1991. Putin’s chief job was to recruit foreigners in the hope of sending them as undercover agents to the USA. He reportedly got interested in joining the KGB while studying in school.

• To join the KGB, he enrolled at the 401st KGB School in Okhta, Leningrad. There, he underwent training in tactics like counter-spy operations and espionage operations in Moscow. There, he enrolled under the false name “Platov.”

• After the completion of his training module, Putin was posted to the Second Chief Directorate of Counterintelligence and was sent to East Germany, where he worked on uncovering spy rings deployed by NATO to collect intelligence on the Russian forces.
  

  Putin’s photo taken when he was in the KGB

• For his work in East Germany, he was promoted and sent to the First Chief Directorate in Leningrad, where worked on monitoring individuals deemed threat to the Soviet Union.
  

  Vladimir Putin’s photo taken when he was in East Germany

• In 1975, he wrote a thesis titled The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law to earn a law degree.

• It is likely due to his dislike for English that he does not enjoy speaking the language.

• In September 1984, he was posted to Moscow, where he underwent advanced espionage training at the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute (now known as the Academy of Foreign Intelligence).

• After completing the training in 1985 with flying colours, Vladimir Putin was deployed to Dresden, Germany, where he worked as a KGB spy. He took the identity of a translator and remained mostly in the Soviet Embassy.

• Thereafter, he became a lieutenant colonel and was handed over the responsibility of overseeing the functioning of the secret East German police called the Stasi.
  

  Vladimir Putin’s Stasi identity card photo

• In 1989, he led the team of Stasi to handle the anti-communist protestors who attempted to take control of Stasi buildings in Dresden by force.

• Despite receiving quick promotions, Putin’s work as a spy and an intelligence officer has been scrutinised time and again. His former colleagues have often claimed that “Putin and his colleagues were reduced mainly to collecting press clippings, thus contributing to the mountains of useless information produced by the KGB.”
  

  A piece of document which was compiled by Vladimir Putin during his tenure in East Germany

• However, some others claim that this was deliberately done by the KGB as a cover for Putin’s work in coordinating with the West Germany-based Red Army Faction, a terror outfit designated by NATO.

• According to a retired official of the Royal Air Force (RAF), Putin worked with other anti-West groups and provided them with weapons and ammunition. He also reportedly worked with a wanted neo-Nazi Rainer Sonntag in recruiting other Germans for the KGB.

• While studying at the Leningrad State University, he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He remained in the party till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They both played a crucial role in uplifting each other political stature within the party.

• In 2023, a German magazine named Der Spiegel claimed that the claims of Putin working against the West and NATO were disputable as most of the sources were false.

• In 1989, before the reunification of Germany, Putin worked on securing important files for the unified government. He did so to disallow anti-unification factions, including the Stasi, to obtain and destroy the documents. He, however, was ordered by the KGB to burn the KGB files before a government was elected in Germany.

• In the same year, he left the KGB and became a reservist in the Soviet Red Army. He reportedly resigned after authorities began suspecting Putin of working with the West during his last days in East Germany.

• After leaving the KGB, he relocated to Leningrad, where he joined the Leningrad State University’s International Affairs Department. There, he also actively sought to recruit students for the KGB. He also served as the head of the student body.
  

  Putin with his friend at the Leningrad State University

• Thereafter, he met the politician and lecturer Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak and they both played a vital role in the establishment of the Russian constitution once it became a federation.

• After Anatoly Sobchak won the mayoral elections of Leningrad, he appointed Putin as his advisor on international affairs.
  

  Anatoly Sobchak and Vladimir Putin in a photo taken during Anatoly’s Mayoral electoral campaigning

• In 1991, after the coup to remove the then-President Mikhail Gorbachev from power, Putin resigned from the Soviet Army as a reservist. He decided to leave as he did not wish to be a part of the new administration and a new intelligence structure. He talked about it, in an interview, and said,
  

  As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on. The choice was hard because I had spent the best part of my life with the organs.”

  

  Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin outside Kremlin in Moscow

• As per Putin, after he left his stable government job, he faced a monetary crunch and drove a taxi in Leningrad for some time to cover the expenses.

• To bring in more investment in Leningrad while working in the office of the mayor as the head of the Committee for External Relations, Putin worked on improving the region’s foreign diplomacy.

• During this time, he faced legal issues over embezzlement of funds. The mayor was suggested by the councillors that he should fire Putin over the issue; however, Anatoly decided otherwise and took no action against Putin.

• In 1994, he went to Saint Petersburg, where he served in numerous government posts till 1996.

• In 1995, he played a crucial role in the expansion of the Our Home – Russia (NDR) party. Due to this, he was chosen to handle the party’s legislative election campaign in the same year.

• In the same year, he became the first person after the fall of the Soviet Union to be appointed deputy chairman of the Government of Saint Petersburg.

• Putin had to resign from all the departments that functioned under him in 1995 after Sobchak lost the mayoral elections in 1996.

• Thereafter, he moved to Moscow, where he worked in the Presidential Property Management Department, which was headed by Pavel Borodin. In this role, he was responsible for managing the state’s foreign property and overseeing the transfer of former assets belonging to the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to the Russian Federation.

• In 1997, to receive a degree in Economics, he wrote a thesis on energy dependencies and their instrumentalisation in foreign policy.

• In the same year, Putin left the Presidential Property Management Department.

• Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, the then-president of Russia, appointed him as the Presidential Staff’s deputy chief as well as the chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department on 26 March 1997. He remained in both the posts till 1998.
  

  Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin with President Vladimir Putin

• In April 1997, Putin was promoted to the post of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation. It is the highest rank a civilian can hold in Russia.

• In June of the same year, Putin wrote a Candidate of Science thesis titled Strategic Planning of the Reproduction of the Mineral Resource Base of a Region under Conditions of the Formation of Market Relations and defended it at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute. However, it was later claimed by many scholars that Putin had copied and pasted about 15 pages from an American economics book.

• When a journalist named David Hoffman visited the Mining Institute in 2000 and demanded a copy of Putin’s thesis, the institute declined his request claiming that it was a private paper.

• In May 1998, the President of Russia appointed him as First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff for the regions.

• Two months later, he became the head of a committee tasked with submitting a report to the government on topics such as the delimitation of power to regions in Russia. He was also tasked with signing agreements with these regions to grant them greater autonomy. However, it was revealed that Putin had failed to submit a report or sign any deals with any region.
  

  Vladimir Putin attending an event as First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff

• All the deals and agreements which were previously signed under someone else’s leadership were cancelled by Putin after he took over the office of the President.

• Vladimir Putin was considered to have become a close confidante of President Yeltsin due to which he was appointed as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the primary intelligence and security organization of the Russian Federation and the successor to the KGB, in June 1998.
  

  Vladimir Putin attending an enlarged session of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Presidium

• As the organisation’s director, he is accredited with formulating policies which resulted in increased efficiency which had declined considerably since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

• A journalist named Anatoly Levin-Utkin was killed by armed assailants while he was investigating allegations of corruption levelled against Putin. Many observers claimed that the hit job was performed on Putin’s orders by the FSB.
  

  A photo of Anatoly Levin-Utkin

• He served in the FSB till his appointment as the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in June 1999.

• In August 1999, Vladimir Putin became the Prime Minister of Russia after receiving 233 votes in favour from the lower house of the assembly. He became the fifth Prime Minister to take the office.
  

  Vladimir Putin with Bill Clinton while he was serving as the Prime Minister of Russia

• As per sources, Putin initially did not wish to contest the Presidential elections; however, on President Yeltsin’s persuasion in 1999, he decided to run for the post.

• Initially, many politicians were against Yeltsin’s decision to choose him as his successor. However, they accepted Putin after his popularity increased manifolds after how he handled the crisis of the September 1999 Russian apartment bombings and the invasion of Dagestan by mujahideen.

• The Second Chechen War also played a vital role in uplifting his image as a law and order enforcer.
  

  Vladimir Putin meeting the Russian Army’s Airborne troops during the Chechen War

• Many political observers have claimed that Putin has often indulged in plagiarism by adding paragraphs and excerpts to his speeches from renowned Russian books.

• Before the December 1999 Duma elections, Putin was not a member of any political party and functioned independently.

• In the elections, he supported the newly established Unity Party, which received the second-largest share of votes in the elections due to his campaigning. The party later pledged its support to Vladimir Putin in his bid for the Presidential elections.

• Putin was appointed as the acting President of Russia after Yeltsin resigned from his Presidency before the end of his actual term. He then went to Chechnya, where he reviewed the Russian Army’s battle plans against the militants.
  

  Vladimir Putin with the head of the Russian Intelligence Services while serving as the Acting President of Russia

• He then returned to his office and the first official decree which he signed was to pardon Yeltsin and his family from all the charges of corruption and bribery. The decree was titled “On guarantees for the former president of the Russian Federation and the members of his family.”

• He then passed another order according to which several cases of bribery and corruption were dismissed against him. Most of these cases were related to his office while he was in St. Petersburg.

• In 2000, Vladimir Putin stood for the presidential elections in the Russian Federation. His campaign was managed by the renowned economist Vladimir Stefanovich Litvinenko, who had taught him economics in college. He received a total of 53 per cent of votes and won it.
  

  Vladimir Putin receiving the briefcase with nuclear codes upon taking over the office of the President of Russia

• In the same year, when a Russian nuclear attack submarine got destroyed underwater, Putin received criticism as he chose not to cut short his vacation with his family and go to Kursk, where the submarine had met with an accident.
  

  A photo of the destroyed Russian nuclear submarine

• Thereafter, he conducted several meetings with Russian businessmen, seeking their financial support for his government. He allowed them to exert a bit more power than they were allowed in the previous regimes.

• He undertook steps to simplify the structure of the Russian constituencies, known as the Federal Subjects of the Russian Federation, in 2000. He passed a decree to structure all the constituencies into 7 federal districts.

• He later ordered the government to conduct local elections to elect a President for each district, who would directly report to the central government.

• In July of the same year, Putin signed another decree which allowed him to remove a District President without the approval of the lower house of the parliament.

• In the late 2000s, Putin implemented the Programme for the Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation for the Period 2000-2010; however, it was discontinued eight years after its beginning as it did not perform as per his expectations.

• From 2000 to 2016, the Russian economy increased four times the size it was during the existence of the Soviet Union.

• During his first tenure as the President of the Russian Federation, Putin played a vital role in reducing the separatist tendencies in the country. He also took additional steps to ensure the removal of corrupt Governors and other political figures who were also associated with mafias and criminals.

• After more than 130 civilians were killed during the Moscow Theatre siege (also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege) in October 2002 many media outlets reported that it would negatively impact his image; however, when a census was conducted later, it was revealed that there was an 83 per cent increase in his favourable public image.
  

  President Putin meeting a victim who was taken hostage at the Moscow Theatre in 2002

• He received criticism from various politicians for how the Russian special forces handled the situation. They believed that Putin could have stopped the Russian forces from using lethal neuro-toxins which led to the casualties.

• Thereafter, he assisted the pro-Russian Chechen government in crushing the rebel movement efficiently in the northern Caucasus.

• In 2003, the Russian government implemented several hostile anti-gay laws in the country, thus confirming Putin’s homophobic mindset.

• In the same year, he worked with Chechen leaders to resolve the armed conflict between Russia and the rebels. According to the agreement, Chechnya adopted its constitution while remaining part of Russia, functioning with increased autonomy.
  

  Ramzan Kadyrov, the son of the deceased Chechen President, meeting with President Vladimir Putin

• His government played a vital role in the organisation of the Parliamentary elections and the formulation of a recognised government.

• Owing to Putin’s privacy concerns, it is alleged that his two daughters, Maria and Yekaterina, attended university under false names, and even to this date nobody knows about their exact whereabouts.

• In the second Presidential election in 2004, Putin defended his office by receiving 71 per cent of the vote.

• Soon after taking the oath for the second time, Russia faced another hostage crisis called the Beslan school hostage crisis in which more than 330 civilians were killed, including 186 children.

• Putin has often shown his resentment about the collapse of the Soviet Union by calling it the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.”

• To improve the social security net of the country, Putin has taken steps to improve the fields of health care, education, housing, life expectancy, and agriculture. As per international studies, all these sectors were at their lowest before Putin became the President.

• Later, Putin passed a decree according to which the Presidents of the Districts (also known as Governors) were no longer elected but were chosen by the President of Russia. This received criticism from the international community as it was seen as a move towards political polarisation.

• Thereafter, he signed the Kyoto Declaration to decrease the emission of the greenhouse gas. However, in 2011, Russia withdrew from the protocol citing economic constraints.

• In 2005, Putin formed a departmental inquiry commission against the then-richest Russian Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his oil and gas company. While Putin claimed that Mikhail was being investigated for bribery and corruption, many political observers claimed that he was being targeted by Putin for allegedly funding his opponents in the Presidential election.

• Following the investigation, Putin got Mikhail arrested, froze his bank accounts, and sold his company below the basic selling price to the government-owned company, PJSC Rosneft Oil Company. This was seen by many as Russia’s shift towards state capitalism.

• He received a lot of criticism from other countries in 2006 after a journalist who was investigating cases of corruption in the Russian army and its alleged human rights violations in Chechnya was shot and killed that too on Putin’s birthday. Following the journalist’s death, Putin was recorded saying, “Her death caused the government more problems than her writings.”

• By the end of 2005, Putin ordered the government to increase its oil production capabilities to be sold to the Middle East and other European and Asian countries. This resulted in an increase in revenue flow because of which his government was able to repay the debt taken by the Soviet Union from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to overcome its trade deficit.

• The following year, a committee led by Vladimir Putin initiated the formation of a unified organization, which was later renamed the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). This organization was established to streamline production and procurement, bringing Russian aircraft manufacturers such as Sukhoi and Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) under a single entity governed by Russian law.

• This resulted in Russia securing deals worth billions of dollars in supplying aircraft to friendly foreign nations.
  

  Putin and Turkish President Erdogan being briefed by a UAC official over the possibilities of exporting Sukhoi 57 aircraft

• In 2007, economic and diplomatic tension between Russia and Germany was at its highest and the situation worsened after Russia decided to not give oil to Germany.

• Seeking a resolution of the situation, the then-German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, visited Russia, where Putin met her at his black sea residence. Reportedly, he brought his dog, a black labrador named Connie Paulgrave. Angela had a phobia of dogs. Many criticised Putin for his acts as they saw it as Putin’s way of expressing his displeasure with the situation.

• Putin later talked about the issue and said that he was not aware of her being afraid of dogs and that Connie had often escorted him to his meetings with delegates from other countries. Merkel, in an interview, talked about the incident and said,
  

  I understand why he has to do this – to prove he’s a man. He’s afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this.”

  

  President Vladimir Putin with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and his pet Labrador

• Putin was considered to be very close to his pet labrador Connie. Many observers often joked about their relationship and said Connie would succeed Putin as Russia’s President one day. She was used as a test subject for GLONASS when scientists installed a collar with GLONASS in it.
  

  Putin’s dog Connie wearing a GLONASS collar

• In February of the same year, Angela invited him to deliver a speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he targeted the expansion of NATO in Europe. He claimed that NATO has violated its promise of not making Eastern European countries members of the organisation.
  

  A photo of Vladimir Putin taken while he was giving a speech at the Munich Security Conference

• Thereafter, he passed an order according to which Russia suspended the obligations of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty.

• Despite withdrawing from the Conventional Armed Forces Treaty, Putin continued to talk in favour of creating a new arms control regime with the help of joint consultative groups.

• To revoke the suspension to oblige by the treaties, he laid down several conditions for NATO to adhere to. He asked NATO to suspend deploying its joint weapons system in Eastern Europe and also asked NATO to reduce the troops deployed on its Northern and Southern borders.

• The Other Russia, also known as Another Russia, organised the Dissenters’ Marches against Vladimir Putin and his government in 2007. These marches were led by the famous chess player and grandmaster Garry Kasparov and the National Bolshevist leader, Eduard Limonov.
  

  The Other Russia members protesting against President Putin in 2007

• The marches, although peaceful, were met with brutal resistance from the riot and mob control police in different parts of Russia. There were massive arrests and the cops tried to stop people from gathering and travelling for the marches.

• At the beginning of 2007, Putin passed a resolution in the parliament due to which his government was dissolved. According to sources, it was done to give him a “free hand” to campaign to improve his approval rate and prepare for the run-up to the parliamentary election.

• In September of the same year, Putin oversaw the use of Russian bombers near American borders during a strategic bombing exercise. This was the first time Russia conducted a military exercise close to the US border since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

• In December 2007, United Russia renewed its support for Putin as the President of Russia after it received nearly 70 per cent of votes in the lower house assembly elections.

• In the same year, Putin played an instrumental role in the passage of a religious law titled Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. Under this law, Russian Orthodox Churches were permitted to reconnect with similar churches abroad. This represented a change from the communist ideology of the Soviet Union, which restricted religious freedom.
  

  Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing a gathering at the Orthodox Church

• Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian military had stopped conducting long-range reconnaissance patrols of the Mediterranean Sea. However, this changed in 2007 when Putin hosted a meeting and instructed to MOD to resume the patrol.

• In the same year, Putin was named Person of The Year by Time magazine.

• Thereafter, he passed a decree according to which the overall size of the Russian military would be increased to a million which would mostly consist of the Non-Commission Officers (NCOs) than the commissioned officers.
  

  President Vladimir Putin posing for a photo with the Russian Army troops

• This action received criticism as international observers saw it as Putin’s attempt to increase militarization in Eastern Europe and assert dominance over NATO in the region.

• In April 2008, Putin was invited to address the NATO Bucharest summit in an attempt to build trust and ease the tension between NATO and Russia. There, he met the US President George W. Bush to whom he told that Russia viewed NATO’s buildup around it as a “direct threat.” He said,
  

  We view the appearance of a powerful military bloc on our border as a direct threat to the security of our nation. The claim that this process is not directed against Russia will not suffice. National security is not based on promises.”

  

  President of Russia Vladimir Putin with the President of the United States of America George W. Bush during the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest

• There, he also told the American delegation that Russia considered Ukraine as “Little Russia,” a remark for which he was criticised internationally.

• In 2008, Putin could not contest the elections for the office of the President for the third time as the Russian constitution allowed only two tenures for the post. However, to overcome this obstacle, Putin appointed Dmitry Medvedev as President, and he took over the post of Prime Minister.

• Although the position of prime minister is officially seen as subordinate, perspectives vary regarding the degree to which Putin was the actual leader during this time. Most views either suggest that Putin was the dominant figure or that he and Medvedev had the same amount of power.

• Under his Prime Ministership, Vladimir Putin is said to have worked on making economic policies that resulted in a slight improvement in the deteriorating Russian economy. He is also accredited with stabilizing the population growth which had been on a decline ever since 1991.

• Putin also implemented numerous police and military reforms which led to improved functioning of the two.

• The Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008 is considered to be the brainchild of Vladimir Putin. This is considered to be one of the most efficiently planned military invasions in the history of Russia.

• In 2009, Germany invited Putin to an international trade show, where he talked about the Russia-Ukraine feud over the sharing of gas. He took a dig at the Ukrainians and said that if Ukraine wanted gas to heat themselves, they could always go to Siberia to cut wood and use it.
  

  President Vladimir Putin with the then-German Chancellor during his visit to Germany

• The feud arose when Gazprom, a Russian entity, refused to share common resources with Naftogaz, a Ukrainian company, citing non-repayment of previous debts from Ukraine to Russia. Ukraine incurred debt after failing to pay the increased tariffs which both nations had agreed to increase in 2008.

• The disagreement between the two countries further escalated when Prime Minister Putin threatened to shut off the gas supply to Ukraine. He also refused to sign a gas supply agreement with Ukraine claiming that Ukraine had refused to make payments for the gas it used in 2008. However, the Ukrainian government refuted the non-payment claims and called them false and baseless.

• Later, in 2009, on Vladimir Putin’s instructions, the gas supply to Ukraine was stopped. It is estimated that approximately 90 mmcm (million cubic meters) of natural gas per day was stopped.

• In 2010, at a charity event in St. Petersburg, Putin sang the song Blueberry Hill for the audience. Interestingly, the crowd included famous faces like Sharon Stone, Kevin Costner, and Gerard Depardieu.

• In August 2010, Putin co-piloted a firefighter plane to help put out hundreds of wildfires in western Russia.
  

  Vladimir Putin co-piloting a plane

• Again, in the same year, Putin took a Renault Formula One race car for a ride on a St. Petersburg track, reaching speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.
  

  A photo of Putin taken while he was driving an F1 car

• Russian writer Sergei Kalenik began an online comic series in 2011 named Superputin, in which the Russian President saves his nation by judo-chopping terrorists. Putin is depicted as a superhero who fights the twin evils of public protest and terrorism, stops a bomb from blowing up a bus & destroys an army of zombies.
  

  Vladimir Putin being depicted in the comic Superputin

• Dmitry Medvedev proposed and later approved Vladimir Putin’s name as a Presidential candidate in the 2012 presidential elections during the 2011 United Russia Congress in Moscow. Later, Putin approved of his recommendation and recommended that Dmitry should contest Prime Ministerial elections in Russia.

• In the 2012 elections, Putin emerged as a winner by receiving over 62 per cent of the total votes.
  

  A photo of Vladimir Putin taken while he was campaigning for the 2012 Presidential elections in Russia

• After the elections, Putin and the United Russia received a massive backlash from the common citizens, who claimed that the elections were rigged and the opposition was wiped out. It is claimed that the protests which took place during this time were one of the biggest ever since 1991.

• Later, reports surfaced that Putin had established several private paramilitary forces which were loyal to him and his party to crush a rebellion against the government. He is said to have worked with such forces from 2005 to 2012.

• Soon after taking over the office, Putin increased the term of the President from 4 years to 6 years. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe criticised Putin and his associates for trying to change the electoral procedures of their own accord.

• Thereafter, many feminist groups took to the streets to protest against his appointment as the President for the third time. It is claimed that approximately 12,000 women protested in Moscow out of which 570 women were arrested by law enforcement agencies.

• Later, more than 1,30,000 people organised a rally at the Luzhniki Stadium, Russia’s largest stadium, in Vladimir Putin’s support. It is claimed that the United Russia party played a major role in organising the rally.

• Reportedly, a majority of attendees were forced to do so by their employers or were paid to attend the rally. Some also claimed that their family members were pressurised to have them attend the event.
  

  A photo of the protestors gathered at the stadium in support of President Vladimir Putin

• The first thing he did after taking over the office of the President was to pass numerous decrees/orders, now popularly known as “May Decrees” as these were issued in May. These focused on areas such as education, housing, skilled labour training, relations with the European Union (EU), the defence industry, inter-ethnic relations, and the economy.

• In 2012, a Human Rights report was published in New York in which it was claimed that Putin had instructed the Russian intelligence agencies to take immediate action on suspicious individuals and non-government organisations. He also imposed a law under which agencies and organisations that take foreign aid were to be treated as “foreign agents.”

• Later, in the same year, Putin wrote an article in The Hindu titled, “The Declaration on Strategic Partnership between India and Russia signed in October 2000 became a truly historic step.” This article was one of the most widely read articles in Southern Asia.

• In May 2013, he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the sale of Russian S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles to Syria. Israel wanted Russia to not sell the missiles to Assad; however, his demands were not adhered to.

• In June 2013, the Russian government passed the “For the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating a Denial of Traditional Family Values,” also known as the “Russian gay propaganda law.” It was intended to combat the spread of homosexual propaganda in Russia. It also bans the use of rainbow flags as well as the publishing of homosexual books and articles.

• This law attracted a lot of controversy. In defence, Putin claimed that it was put into effect to reduce paedophilia. He also claimed that the members of the LGBTQ community lived in peace and harmony without any discrimination in Russia. He talked about it, in an interview, and said,
  

  We have recently passed a law prohibiting propaganda, and not of homosexuality only, but of homosexuality and child abuse, child sexual abuse. But this has nothing to do with persecuting individuals for their sexual orientation. There’s a world of difference between these things.”

• The All-Russia People’s Front (now known as the People’s Front), which is a movement, invited Putin to a rally where he was chosen to head it. This movement is aimed at promoting a people-friendly government and if needed replacing the United Russia party with another party.
  

  President Vladimir Putin meeting with the members of the All-Russia People’s Front after being appointed as its head

• On 22 February 2014, Putin expressed his desire to merge Crimea, then controlled by Ukraine, with the Russian Federation. For this, he instructed his military chiefs and heads to begin making a plan to be executed in the same year.

• Within a few days, Russian forces without military insignia crossed into Crimea to assist the pro-Russia groups in the region.
  

  Russian troops, also known as the unmarked, unnamed, Putin’s green men, in Crimea, Ukraine

• Initially, the Kremlin denied having any troops present in the region; however, Putin thereafter revealed that there were Russian forces in limited numbers in Crime to “stand behind Crimea’s self-defence forces.”

• Later, on his orders, the Russian military sent weapons and equipment to pro-Russia militias in the Oblast region of Ukraine.

• After the Russian troops occupied the Crimean parliament in the same year, Putin held a meeting with the pro-Russian Aksyonov government and later announced that Sergei Askyonov would form a provisional government in the region.
  

  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov during a private meeting in Kremlin, Moscow

• Russia formally incorporated Crimea on 18 March 2014 as the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol.

• In the same year, Putin was named the Person of The Year for Increasing Organised Crime and Corruption in Russia by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

• Thereafter, Putin visited the region and inaugurated several military bases in and around Crimea, while warning strict action against “outside powers” trying to intervene.

• For his actions in Crimea, Russia was suspended as a member of the G8. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) also adopted a resolution supported by a majority of members which rejected Russia’s claims on Crimea and also rejected the idea of referendum and annexation.

• Thereafter, violent protests erupted in Crimea and the protestors began attacking the remaining Ukrainian personnel there. They were funded by the Russian KGB and were asked to chant “Putin is our President.”

• Despite criticism from other countries, Putin ordered his military to siege and take control of Sevastopol, a strategically important city. Putin officially recognised the Republic of Crimea ‘as a sovereign and independent state’ by decree on 17 March 2014. The region became a federal Subject of Russia on 21 March 2014.

• The next month, Putin ordered the Bank Rossiya to open its branches in the annexed Crimean parts to allow citizens to conduct monetary and financial transactions.

• After completing the merger of Crimea in Russia, the then-Finance Minister, Tatyana Gennadyevna Nesterenko, claimed that the plan to do so was made by Putin without involving the Finance Ministry. She also wrote an article in a business newspaper claiming that taking Crimea would not benefit Russia economically but might drain it of its resources.

• In retaliation to the invasion, many Ukrainians living in Russia began spraying graffiti on government buildings abusing him and calling him words.

• As per sources, Putin passed another decree which prohibited the Russian media outlets from discussing or writing about the alleged human rights violation perpetrated by the Russian troops in Ukraine as well as the deaths of the Russian military personnel killed while taking Crimea.

• Under President Vladimir Putin’s reign, Russia forged a close alliance with Syria and its President Bashar al-Assad. It was reported in early 2015 that Bashar had requested Putin to send his forces to Syria to help him and his Syrian Arab Army (SAA) fight against the American-funded Free Syrian Army (FSA).
  

  President Putin with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad

• Many academicians and observers have claimed in their articles and write-ups that Putin has changed the foreign policy of Russia to be able to create the Soviet Union bloc which once existed.

• On 30 September 2015, Putin led the cabinet which allowed the Russian military and intelligence personnel to operate in an “advisory” role in Syria.
  

  A photo of Vladimir Putin taken when he was visiting his troops stationed in Syria against the FSA

• Reports also suggest that Putin later asked the Ministry of Defence to negotiate a contract with the Russian Private Military Contractor (PMC), the Wagner Group, to work on behalf of the Syrian and Russian governments and conduct combat operations there.

• In the same month, he created a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with Assad. This organisation aimed at fighting to reduce the influence of terrorist organisations such as ISIS and ISIL.

• In Syria, the Russian Army avoided confrontation with the anti-government militia on Putin’s orders. The army engaged mostly with rocket and artillery strikes in the country.

• In October of the same year, Putin reportedly approached NATO and its allies supporting the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to join forces against the growing threat of ISIS and ISIL. He also accused the US of supplying ISIS and not sharing information regarding the positions of the terrorists in Syria.

• In March 2016, Putin addressed and said that he had ordered the withdrawal of the Russian forces from Syria as the objectives were “largely accomplished.”

• In the same year, Presidential elections were conducted in the United States of America in which Donald Trump was elected as the president. The US Intelligence agencies suspected foul play in the election procedure and suspected Russia’s role in trying to influence the elections.
  

  President Vladimir Putin engaging in official talks with President Donald Trump after he became the President of the US in 2016

• A report published by the FBI suggested that Putin personally oversaw clandestine operations in the US during the election campaigning as he did not want Hillary Clinton to be appointed as the President. However, both Trump and Putin later denied the allegations as false and baseless.

• Later, in 2016, Putin was criticised by the Vatican and other Christian countries over the passage of a law which banned conversion to Christianity by missionaries. However, Putin cited “violation of public safety and public order; extremist activity, coercion into destroying the family, damaging morals, and motivation of individuals to refuse to fulfil civic duties established by law.”

• As late as 2017, many media sources claimed that despite the official declaration, Russian intelligence and special forces continued to work in a “limited capacity” in Syria for Bashar. It was also claimed that for their assistance, Bashar allotted several oil farms to Putin’s government through which it made a lot of money.

• In an interview, Putin said that he blamed himself for the murder of Colonel Gaddafi, the Syrian dictator. He also claimed that it is the root cause for lending help to Assad.

• To end the fighting in Syria and allow Assad to cede power without any bloodshed, Putin is said to have presented a 3-point plan to the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). However, the report was dismissed by France, the UK, and the US as they believed Assad’s government would lose to the rebels.

• In 2018, he took over the post of the President of the Russian Federation for the fourth time after winning the presidential elections by receiving more than 76 per cent of total votes. This was the highest percentage of votes he had ever received in his political career.
  

  A photo of President Vladimir Putin taken while he was casting his vote during the 2018 Russian Presidential elections

• In May of the same year, Putin addressed a press conference in which he said that he would not be running for the office of the president for the fifth time in 2024. He said that he took this decision to comply with the Russian constitution and allow someone else to become the President.

• In the same month, Putin ordered the construction of the Crimean Bridge on an urgent basis. He inaugurated it soon after ordering its construction.

• Russia hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2018, which was inaugurated by Putin. According to sources, Putin had played an important role in securing the event for the country to uplift the image of the United Russia party.
  

  A photo of President Vladimir Putin taken during the inauguration ceremony of the FIFA World Cup in 2018

• In October 2018, Putin announced that Russia had changed its nuclear doctrine and that the country would use its arsenal in case its adversary used its nukes first.

• Reportedly, Putin ordered United Russia to interfere and use government resources to meddle with the 2019 nationwide regional elections through the elimination of politicians in opposition by any means possible. This caused him to receive a lot of criticism.

• The actions of the United Russia incited mass protests in favour of democracy, leading to large-scale arrests and cases of police brutality.

• Putin changed his stance on environmental pollution in 2019 after he joined the Paris Agreement. He then announced the formulation of policies that would make Russia a net-zero emission country.

• In January 2020, the Prime Minister of Russia and other United Russia position holders within the government resigned from their posts after Putin’s Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly during which he suggested bringing some changes and amends to the Russian constitution.

• On 3 July 2020, he signed an official decree to officially introduce the amendments to the Russian Constitution, which took effect on 4 July.

• The first amendment that was implemented on Putin’s orders was to change the clause that a politician can not become a President of Russia more than two times in a row. This was seen as his bid for the 2024 Presidential elections, which he had earlier claimed to not contest.

• In total, 41 articles were amended while five more were added. These changes included redefining marriage in law to be exclusive to a man and a woman and the approval of Prime Ministerial candidacy by the lower house.

• Putin received praise from the international community during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic after he agreed to send a contingent of the Russian armed forces, including doctors and medical supplies, to Italy at the request of its Prime Minister.
  

  Vladimir Putin’s picture taken while he was meeting with a doctor involved in making COVID-19 vaccinations

• To counter the spread of the virus in Russia, Putin passed a decree that sought the creation of a Working Group of the State Council, headed by a mayor of each region.

• Putin is reportedly reestablishing military regions in Russia, similar to those that existed during the Soviet Union.

• Vladimir Putin is considered to be a very close ally of the notorious dictator Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Kim has reportedly supplied Putin with labour and natural resources in exchange for military hardware and missile technology. In 2019, Putin agreed to help the DPRK with constructing its satellite.
  

  President Putin with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un during his visit to the DPRK

• It is estimated that, on Putin’s orders, Russia has allocated a budget for the North Korean Cyber Warfare Unit to operate from within Russia itself. The Russian intelligence looks after it and there are an estimated 6,000 people in this unit selected by North Korea with Russian assistance.

• In July 2021, Putin published an article titled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. In it, he asserted that caucasian races living in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia must live in one “Russian nation.” This article was later seen as an indication of the Russian Federation towards their planned invasion of Ukraine. In it, he specified,
  

  We all are one people whom the forces have always sought to undermine and have always wanted to divide and rule.”

• He was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize in the same year for reportedly influencing Assad to ask his army to lay down arms and surrender. It was submitted by Sergey Komkov, a controversial Russian writer and public figure.

• He was given the nickname “Grandpa in his Bunker” by political observers in Ukraine after Putin ordered the arrest of his political rival Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny, who later died in February 2024 while in prison.

• In early 2022, Putin ordered a joint military exercise between Russia and Belarus on the Ukrainian border. However, while the exercise was underway, Putin ordered Russian troops to cross the Ukrainian border and march towards Kyiv.

• Later, many captured Russian Prisoners of War (POW) claimed that they had not received any instructions regarding the invasion before the beginning of the war and they were told that it was a “regular annual military exercise.”

• In February 2022, Putin signed an official decree according to which the Russian Federation gave recognition to several anti-Ukrainian separatist forces operating in the Donbas region.

• Thereafter, Putin held a press conference in which he criticised the US and NATO for breaking its treaty of not involving Ukraine in its organisation. He said that if Ukraine joined NATO, it would pose a threat to Russia’s sovereignty, prompting Russia to undertake military action. He talked about it and said,
  

  They (NATO) try to convince us (Russia) over and over again that they are a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance, saying that there are no threats to us. Again they propose that we take them at their word. But we know the real value of such words.”

• On 24 February 2022, Russian troops crossed the border and invaded Ukraine. Putin called it a “special military operation.” Initially, he had claimed that Russia would only be taking control over the Donbas region to “protect the Russian-speaking population from the Nazi regime of Ukraine.”
  

  A photo of Russian Army troops taken while they were conducting military operations in Ukraine

• After the beginning of the invasion, the DPRK was the first country to express its support for Russia by claiming that Russia had to invade Ukraine because of the interference of the US in Eastern Europe.

• According to sources, Putin did not have plans to invade Ukraine; however, he was persuaded to do so by his close friends and advisors including Nikolai Patrushev (a politician and former KGB officer), Yury Kovalchuk (billionaire businessman and financier), and Alexander Bortnikov (former FSB director).

• In the same year, a report was leaked online in which it was claimed that Putin had been planning the invasion of Ukraine since 2021. He wanted to attack Ukraine in 2021; however, due to a lack of resources and keeping in mind the readiness of the armed forces, the plan was postponed till 2022.

• After initiating the war, the international community imposed several financial and economic restrictions on Russia, Putin, and several other military and political leaders. It is said that after the sanctions, many international brands such as McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Gucci left Russia. It led to a sudden downfall in the Russian economy.

• Many politicians and ministers, including those in the defence ministry, were against the invasion of Ukraine but Putin overruled their concerns due to being influenced.

• Soon after the outbreak of the war, evidence of corruption within the Russian Army began surfacing. Captured Russian equipment by Ukrainian forces revealed that they were substandard and of poor quality. Many videos surfaced on the internet showing Ukrainian troops showing the condition of the body armour being issued to the Russian troops in Ukraine.

• Many captured Russians also claimed that due to a shortage of funds and basic equipment, young recruits were asked to buy their gear for the war. The training was also poor and they received very less amount of training.

• In March 2022, many Russian and foreign media outlets began reporting about the state of the Russian military and its losses in Ukraine. In response to the situation, Putin issued a decree stating that anyone who reported “incorrectly” on the Russian military’s actions in Ukraine without prior approval from the Ministry of Defense (MOD) could face up to 15 years in prison.

• The Russian authorities later prohibited several international media outlets that were not based in Russia.

• On 7 March 2022, Russia sought to end hostilities by proposing the condition of recognizing its annexation of Crimea and Donbas to conclude the war. As per sources, this was done because Putin was frustrated with the speed at which the invasion was happening.

• In the same month, Ukraine rejected the offer and many European countries pledged increased support to the country.

• In September 2022, Putin officially merged the annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Oblasts into Russia. This, however, was not legitimised by the UN or any other country or organisation and was seen as an illegal action.

• In the same month, the relations between Russia and the United States of America reached an all-time low when Putin not only provided asylum to the American whistleblower Edward Snowden but also provided him with Russian citizenship. In retaliation, the Biden administration cancelled the US-Russia summit.
  

  The first photo of Edward Snowden (third from the right) with Russian officials taken after he was granted asylum by Putin in Russia

• By the end of 2022, Putin instructed the construction of special holding cells across Russia to prosecute those Russian citizens who criticised Russia’s declaration of war on Ukraine. As per a human rights report, Putin has ordered the imprisonment of more than 4,000 Russians under the country’s war censorship laws.

• In 2023, after failing to achieve objectives due to massive casualties in Ukraine. Putin reportedly proposed increasing the age limit and decreasing the medical requirements for the Russians to allow them to join the armed forces to replenish their strength.

• In January of the same year, he proposed ending the war but forward the same condition that he did in 2022. However, it was once again rejected.

• Since the start of the war, all world leaders scheduled to meet with Putin had cancelled their meetings; however, Xi was the only leader who did not. He was also the first to meet with Putin since the conflict began in 2022.
  

  President Vladimir Putin with the Chinese Premiere Xi Jinping during their meeting

• In May 2023, the international community began pressurizing South Africa to not allow Putin to attend the 15th BRICS Summit. However, South Africa refused to do so and allowed him to attend the summit after granting him diplomatic immunity.

• Later, the Russian authorities began drafting eligible males into the armed forces against their wishes causing many Russians to flee the country and seek refuge.

• The war took a toll on Russia’s already dwindling demography and casualties not only reduced its population but also impacted the fertility rate in men and women.

• In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin after he was accused of illegally sending Ukrainian women and kids to prison centres in Russia. According to reports, Putin has instructed law enforcement agencies to impose forced labour on them.

• Later, in Putin’s defence, the Russian government clarified that the women and children were deported to Russia to avoid their deaths in the war.

• In May 2023, to minimize casualties of the Russian Ground Forces in Ukraine, Putin ordered the MOD to allocate funds and other resources for the Wagner group to work.

• In June 2023, Putin violated an agreement with the European Union (EU) by establishing a separate channel for European countries to negotiate agreements for using the Black Sea route for grain imports. This action was viewed as an attempt to blockade Ukraine, impairing its ability to import grain and weakening its capabilities in the ongoing conflict.

• In the same month, reports of internal conflicts between Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin-led Russian private mercenary group, Wagner Group, and the Russian government began to surface.

• Initially, it was Putin who allowed the Wagner Group to execute missions in Ukraine. He reportedly also allowed Prigozhin to recruit more mercenaries from jail. The condition was to serve in the group in Ukraine for six months for their release from prison. It is estimated that more than 1,80,000 prisoners were recruited to fight on the frontlines.
  

  Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin with his Wagner Group troops in Ukraine

• Later, numerous videos surfaced on the internet in which the Wagner Group was seen fighting with the Russian troops, even killing them on suspicion of desertion. Yevgeny also released a video in which he was seen abusing Putin and his government for not allocating more resources for his mercenaries to work.

• Soon after, Yevgeny led a rebellion against Putin. He justified the coup as a “necessary” step to fight corruption in the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

• Putin, on 24 June 2023, appeared on television and called the rebellion treason and Yevgeny a traitor. He also announced the mobilisation of the Russian reservists to quell any coup attempts. The Russian government also declared the Wager Group as an illegitimate group operating in Ukraine. Yevgeny talked about the coup of the Wagner Group, in an interview, and said,
  

  There’s nobody on earth who can stop them. Those police cordons are nothing. Subconsciously, all the law enforcement officers absolutely agree with everything.”

• According to close friends of Yevgeny, he believed that Putin would work with him in case of a rebellion and would assist him in battling corruption in the MOD.

• Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin had known each other since the fall of the Soviet Union, and he was considered to be one of the most close associates of Putin.
  

  An old photo of President Vladimir Putin with President George W. Bush and his close associate Yevgeny Prigozhin taken in the early 2000s

• Later, the feud between Prughozin and Putin increased after Putin did not allow him to deliver a speech in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. It was reported that Putin did so to disallow Prighozin from criticising the Russian government and the Russian military.

• To curb the rebellion, Putin instructed the Russian FSB to conduct raids and secure the Wagner Group’s headquarters in Moscow. He also asked the Russian Reservist troops to secure the Wagner Group facilities all across the Russian Federation.

•  It was later reported that a convoy consisting of over 1,000 Wagner mercenaries had begun moving towards the Kremlin in Moscow.
  

  The Wagner Group mercenaries sitting on top of a tank moving towards Moscow

• Following the crackdown of the government, Prighozin reportedly realised that the coup would fail and he would be put in prison. To avoid the situation, he tried to establish communication with the Presidential staff and Putin himself, who, as per sources, refused to talk to him.

• Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin and the President of Belarus, served as a mediator between them. He, on Putin’s request, spoke to Prigozhin and said,
  

  Zhenya [the diminutive for Yevgeniy], no one will give you either Shoigu or Gerasimov, especially in this situation, you know Putin as well as I do. Secondly, he will not only not meet with you. He will not talk to you on the phone due to this situation.”

• To curb Yevgeny’s actions, Putin, on 27 June 2023, revealed to the public that the Wagner Group was financed by the Russian government. This was in contrast to the Russian government’s previous statements in which it officially declined any involvement in the Wagner Group’s military expeditions.

• On 23 August 2023, the plane carrying Prighozin was shot down which led to his death. As per the official accord, the plane was shot down by a low-range surface-to-air missile (SAM); however, many Russian sources pointed out that the attack was carried out by a Russian air defence unit with a medium-range surface-to-air missile on Putin’s instructions.

• They also noted that, at the altitude where the plane was flying, it would have been impossible for a short-range missile to reach it and shoot it down.

• Soon after taking over the office of the President, Putin replaced Sergei Shoigu with Andrey Belousov as defence minister and ordered the Finance Ministry to implement policies to transform the Russian economy into a War Economy to “prepare for many more years of war.”

• The extraordinary benefit of staying in Russia is that you can buy PuTin Canned Goods & PuTin Vodka.
  

  A photo of the Putin Canned Goods

  

  A photo of the Putin Vodka bottle

• Later, in 2023, Putin expressed his opinion in favour of Israel when the war between Israel and Hamas broke out. Putin said that Israel had the right to defend itself. However, he criticised the bombing of the civilians and seizing of the Gaza Strip. He also showed his willingness to work as a mediator to end the conflict, an offer rejected and criticised by Israel and the West.

• In retaliation, Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned Putin and expressed his displeasure over his statement and also criticised his friendly relations with Iran.
  

  President Vladimir Putin with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

• In May 2023, Putin was sent a notice by the Ministry of Finance regarding the overstretching of the war budget leading to a downfall in the Russian economy.

• In the same month, he once again expressed his desire to seek a ceasefire with Ukraine on the condition that Ukraine recognized its territory captured by Russian forces as Russian land.

• In late 2023, Putin signed a deal with Iran according to which Iran supplied Kamikaze drones (suicide drones equipped with explosives). Iran also supplied Russia with arms and ammunition.

• Later, he instructed the MOD and the Finance Ministry to work together to increase the Russian military spending from 10 per cent of the GDP to 40 per cent of the GDP. This led to widespread protests in Moscow; however, despite these demonstrations, the government proceeded to increase spending.

• He then released a statement in which he claimed that he had proposed a ceasefire in Ukraine; however, the offer for peace talks was rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• He later changed his stance on the ceasefire talks and said Russia would only end the war following “de-Nazification, de-militarization and a neutral status” of Ukraine.

• According to sources, Putin has been expressing his desire to end the war in Ukraine through intermediaries.

• In January 2024, President Vladimir Putin presented Kim Jong-un with a luxurious Russian-made Aurus Senat limousine. Putin personally used this vehicle for his official visits.
  

  Kim exiting from the limousine which was later gifted to him by Putin

• The United Nations (UN) published a report later in which it revealed that Vladimir Putin had devised a “kidnapping policy” under which Ukrainians living in Crimea and Donbas were subjected to cruelty by FSB agents after being kidnapped. it also claimed that the FSB not only kidnapped the dissenters but also their family members.

• In March 2024, Putin took part in his fifth Presidential election and won it with 88.48% of the vote. As per sources, Putin rigged the elections as his popularity in reality had declined manifolds due to his repressive policies and the war with Ukraine. The Russian government also conducted elections in the regions acquired by the country in Ukraine.

• In the same month, Chechen rebels and militants attacked and besieged the Crocus City Hall in which around 145 people were killed and 500 people were injured; it is considered to be most deadliest militant attack in the history of Russia.

• As of April 2024, North Korea has reportedly sent 7,000 shipping containers with ammunition, clothes, spare parts, and other types of heavy weapons to Russia ever since its war with Ukraine began in 2022. However, DPRK has denied selling weapons to Russia at Putin’s request.
  

  Artillery shells, with markings in Korean, seized by the Ukrainian Army from the Russians

• Many times, it has been claimed that the Russian troops have engaged in violating human rights on the Kremlin’s orders. Many mass and unmarked graves have been excavated and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked Putin to present himself before the court to face justice. However, Putin has denied the allegations.

• To mount pressure on the ICC and the US, Putin asked his Strategic Rocket Forces’s nuclear deterrence units on high alert and conduct nuclear exercises close to the American-Alaskan border.

• In August 2024, Russia decided to enhance communication and show goodwill to the United States and NATO by conducting a prisoner swap, releasing American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who works for The Wall Street Journal, from prison.

• The 2024 Ankara prisoner exchange marked the largest swap of detainees between Russia and the United States since the Cold War concluded, resulting in the release of twenty-six individuals.

• In September of the same year, reports circulated online that he has two sons with former Olympic Gymnast Kabaeva. Sources also claim that his sons live a luxurious life northwest of Moscow. While Ivan was born in 2015, Putin Jr. was born in 2019. Putin keeps them out of the limelight and homeschools them.

• In the same month, Putin announced that it would change its No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons policy. In a statement, Putin claimed that if NATO decided to use conventional (non-nuclear) weapons, Russia would use its nuclear warheads in retaliation.

• Analysts claim that Putin’s declaration is intended to deter the United States, the United Kingdom, and France from permitting Ukraine to utilize Western-provided long-range missiles like the Storm Shadow and ATACMS to target Russia.

• His method of running the country’s administration is best described as “sovereign democracy with manual management.” Putin has made efforts to ensure foreign powers do not play an active role in determining Russia’s stance on international matters. He is also known for prioritising financial stability as he believes instability could cause political problems.

• In late 2024, news began circulating that North Korean troops were fighting in Russian military uniforms in Ukraine.
  

  A still from a video showing North Korean Army troops in Russian military uniforms in Ukraine

• Vladimir Putin does not smoke. He has led numerous anti-smoking campaigns in Russia after taking the office of the President.

• As the President of Russia, Vladimir is credited with codifying land and tax laws and creating new codes for labour, administrative, criminal, commercial, and civil procedural law.

• Over time, Putin has deviated from his likelihood of communist principles and has often termed communism as “a blind alley, far away from the mainstream of civilization.”

• Even though Putin has never worked in the Finance Ministry, he is believed to have developed his economic policies in four stages. These stages are as follows: the “reform” years of his first term (1999-2003); the “statist” years of his second term (2004 to the first half of 2008); the period of the world economic crisis and subsequent recovery (the second half of 2008 to 2013); and the era of the Russo-Ukrainian War, characterized by Russia’s growing isolation from the global economy and stagnation (2014 – 2024).

• During his presidency, Putin is said to have created close and personal relations with famous Jewish Russian billionaire businessmen such as Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich. This reportedly has led to an increased influence of the Jewish community in Russian society. He is also close with Ronald S. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress.

• He has been accused of imprisoning his political rivals. According to a 2020 Memorial Human Rights Center report, there were 380 political prisoners in Russia, including 63 individuals prosecuted, directly or indirectly, for political activities (including Alexey Navalny who was Putin’s direct rival).

• Vladimir Putin consumes alcoholic beverages occasionally.
  

  Vladimir Putin’s photo taken when he was drinking alcohol at an event

• He is an avid animal lover and loves dogs in particular. Many world leaders have gifted him puppies. He owns Buffy, a caramel and white Bulgarian male, Yume, a female Akita, Verny, an Alabai, Pasha, a Šarplaninac, and two North Korean Pungsan dogs.
  

  President Vladimir Putin with a few of his pet dogs

• Vladimir Putin is an equestrian. He learned horse riding at an early age.
  

  A photo of Vladimir Putin taken while he was riding a horse in Russia

• Under Putin’s presidency, Russia’s journalistic ranking has decreased manifolds. In its 2013 list, Reporters Without Borders ranked Russia 148th among 179 countries regarding press freedom.

• Even though he has claimed to have brought liberalism in several forms in Russia after the USSR was dissolved in 1991; however, many scholars often affiliate him with Russian conservatism. They have also claimed that he is against globalism and neoliberalism.

• Although he has been linked with the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, Putin has often gone against their ideologies, especially on the topic of abortion. He has, on numerous occasions, expressed that abortion is the right of self-determination of a woman. In an interview, he said,
  

  In the modern world, the decision is up to the woman herself. Any attempt to suppress it would only push the practice underground, causing immense damage to women’s health.”

• Under his rule, Russia hosted the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games in 2014, the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

• Putin’s ideologies behind his foreign policies have been penned in a book titled “Russia at the Turn of the Millenium.” In the book, it has been mentioned that to maintain Russia’s unity, Putin does not allow its policies to align with those of the West. His policies are often claimed to have originated from the Old Soviet School of Thought.

• He has played a vital role in keeping BRICS, an intergovernmental organization consisting of ten countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, intact.
  

  President Vladimir Putin posing for a photo with the members of the BRICS

• The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU), an economic collaboration of five European nations that were once a part of the Soviet Union, is considered to be Vladimir Putin’s brainchild. According to sources, Putin suggested creating such a union to “ease tensions” between Russia and the former Soviet countries.
  

  Vladimir Putin posing with the members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)

• In March 2025, the Kremlin issued a statement in which it claimed that American President Donald Trump had talked with President Putin on call for more than an hour to chalk out a plan to end the Russia-Ukraine War.

• Under Putin’s reign, Russia has become one of the first countries to have been allowed to sell its products directly to the citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

• Putin has written numerous books on combat sports. Some of the most sold books are Judo with Vladimir Putin in Russian, and Judo: History, Theory, Practice (2004) in English.
  

  Cover page of Judo History, Theory, Practice

• Numerous memes featuring Putin have been circulating on the internet. One of the most famous memes depicts him riding a Russian grizzly bear. Reportedly, this meme was created to equate him with masculinity.
  

  A meme depicting Vladimir Putin riding a bear in a river