Vladimir Putin

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[Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin] ([Media helphelp]·[info]) (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин, Vladímir Vladímirovich Pútin; born October 7, 1952) is a Russian politician, and the current President of the Russian Federation. He succeeded Boris Yeltsin on December 31, 1999.

Life and career

Putin was born in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg since 1991 and before 1914). His biography, Ot Pervogo Litsa, translated into English under the title First Person and based on interviews conducted with Putin in 2000 was paid for by his election campaign. It speaks of humble beginnings, including early years in a rat-infested tenement in a communal apartment. According to his biography, in his youth he was eager to emulate the intelligence officer characters played on the Soviet screen by actors such as Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Georgiy Zhzhonov.

In the same book, Putin notes that his paternal grandfather, a chef by profession, was brought to the Moscow suburbs to serve as a cook, at one of Stalin's dachas. In "The Court of the Red Tsar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore, a footnote on page 300 cites Putin as saying that while his grandfather did not discuss his work very often, he recalled serving meals to Rasputin as a boy and also prepared food for Lenin. His mother was a factory worker and his father was conscripted into the navy, where he served in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. His father subsequently served with the land forces during the Second World War. Two older brothers were born in the mid-1930's; one died within a few months of birth; the second succumbed to diphtheria during the siege of Leningrad.

Putin graduated from the International Department of the Law Faculty of the Leningrad State University in 1975 and was recruited into the KGB. In First Person, Putin described to journalists his early duties in the KGB, which included suppressing dissident activities in Leningrad.

From 1985 to 1990 the KGB stationed Putin in Dresden, East Germany, in what he regards as a minor position. Following the collapse of the East German regime, Putin was recalled to the Soviet Union and returned to Leningrad, where in June 1990 he assumed a position with the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University, reporting to the Vice-Rector. In June 1991, he was appointed head of the International Committee of the St Petersburg Mayor's office, with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments.

Putin formally resigned from the state security services on August 20, 1991, during the KGB-supported abortive putsch against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1994 he became First Deputy Chairman of the city of Saint Petersburg, a position he retained until he was called to Moscow, in August 1996, to serve in a variety of senior positions in Boris Yeltsin's second Administration. He was the first civilian head of the FSB (the successor agency to the KGB) from July 1998 to August 1999, and also served as Secretary of the Security Council from March to August 1999.

During the 1990s, Putin received a sub-doctoral level degree in economics from a mining institute in St Petersburg. His dissertation was titled "The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations."

Prime Minister and first term as President

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Putin was appointed Chairman (predsedatel', or prime minister) of the Government of the Russian Federation by President Boris Yeltsin in August 1999, making him Russia's fifth prime minister in less than eighteen months. On his appointment, few expected Putin, a virtual unknown, to last any longer than his predecessors. Yeltsin's main opponents and would-be successors, Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov and former Chairman of the Russian Government Yevgeniy Primakov, were already campaigning to replace the ailing president, and fought hard to prevent Putin's emergence as a potential successor. Putin's law-and-order image and his unrelenting approach to the renewed crisis in Chechnya (see below) soon combined to raise his popularity and allowed him to overtake all rivals. While not formally associated with any party, Putin was supported by the newly formed Edinstvo (unity) faction, which won the largest percentage of the popular vote in the December 1999 Duma elections. Putin was reappointed as Chairman of the Government, and seemed ideally positioned to win the presidency in elections due the following summer. His rise to Russia's highest office ended up being even more rapid: on December 31, 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and appointed Putin the second (acting) President of the Russian Federation. Presidential elections were held March 26, 2000, which Putin won in the first round. Later Putin granted the former president and his family full immunity from prosecution.

After years of scandal, erratic policy making and a general sense of national malaise under the aged, awkward and ailing Yeltsin, Putin's election appeared to mark a new beginning in Russia's post-Soviet history. However, the new president's election was due in no small measure to Yeltsin's inner circle, who had selected and supported Putin with a view to maintaining their own power and privilege. As Putin's new administration took shape, members of the Yeltsin-era nomenklatura – including Chief of Staff Alexander Voloshin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov – retained significant control over the policies and direction of the new government. On the other hand, Putin was also backed by a team of economic reformers from his native St Petersburg, and could rely as well on support from the siloviki. (The latter group are defined as members of Russia's still-powerful security services, who regard themselves as the defenders of Russia's permanent national interests in the face of rapacious politicians and officials, and who are also well-informed about all aspects of Russia's political and economic life.) The tension – and cooperation – between these various groups was a central feature of Putin's first term in office.

Upon his election, Putin undertook measures to restore the primacy of the Kremlin in Russia's political life. Under Yeltsin, Russia's 89 sub-federal political territories (republics, oblasts, krai, and Moscow and St Petersburg) had been granted unprecedented autonomy. While this radical move had been intended to help Yeltsin's political maneuvers in the early 1990s, it also led to a highly irregular federalism and contributed to the growth of separatist movements, most notably in Chechnya. One of Putin's first acts, therefore, was to attempt to restore what he referred to as the "power vertical" – i.e. a return to the traditional top-down federal system. As a first step, Putin announced the appointment of seven presidential "plenipotentiary representatives" who were explicitly charged with coordinating federal activity in newly-defined super-regions. While billed as a seminal break with Yeltsin-era federalism, for a variety of reasons the plenipotentiary system has encountered mixed success. Of more lasting significance, Putin also instituted a major reform of Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council. Putin and his team also entered into head-on confrontations with several uncooperative governors accused of corruption, though with only mixed success.

The first months of Putin's first term were also marked by a settling of scores among elite financial-industrial groups, whose monetary resources and media empires had been critical weapons in the domestic political war that had been waged over the previous year. Leading members of the old Yeltsin group – known informally as "the Family" – were determined to punish the losing camp, headed by Vladimir Gusinsky, which had backed the Primakov/Luzhkov ticket. Gusinsky had rendered himself vulnerable since his media empire was a chronic money loser and was deeply indebted, surviving on loans from Gazprom and the Luzkhov-controlled Bank of Moscow. Within a year of Putin's election, Gusinsky went from being a would-be kingmaker to living in self-imposed exile; his once-influential media conglomerate (Media-MOST) dissolved into bankruptcy due to a cut off in credits by state-owned and state-allied businesses and under the weight of criminal and civil court decisions.

The first acute crisis which Putin faced as president arose in August 2000, when the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank off the Kola peninsula, killing 118 sailors on board. Many people across a wide spectrum of Russian society were angered by the failure of the government and the military to release credible information about the scale and certainty of the disaster in first days of the tragedy. After several days of mounting public confusion and anger, Putin cut short his vacation and returned to Moscow to take charge of the crisis. Until the submarine was raised, the governmental commission of investigation into the disaster took into account various versions including a collision with a "NATO" submarine (a theory that was never supported by evidence and which was denied by the Alliance states). While Putin was criticised by the Russian media for his inaction during the initial stages of the crisis, it did not have a lasting effect on his image and popularity.

Putin has been unenthusiastic about erasing Russia's Soviet past from memory — the previous policy of Boris Yeltsin aimed primarily at his Communist rivals. He has stated his belief that whatever the crimes of the Communist regime, it was nevertheless an important part of Russian history and has a formative influence on the creation of modern Russian society. As a result, some Soviet-era symbols have been allowed to return to Russia, such as the trademark red military flag, the "Soviet Star" crest, and the Soviet national anthem (although with revised lyrics) – all of which have resonated well with the majority of Russia's population. In responding to critics of these moves, Putin has argued that he is the president of all Russians — including those such as the retirees who lost out in the post-Soviet transformation, and who understandably cling to symbols of the past.

A pro-Putin United Russia party won a landslide victory in the 2003 parliamentary elections. Official foreign observers called the election itself free, but noted that the largely government-run media, especially Russian national TV, had massively and unfairly campaigned for the governing party only. Indeed, most Russian TV stations are now controlled directly or indirectly by the Kremlin. While reaching a much more limited audience, newspapers are more diverse; some are critical of the Kremlin, while others promote the government line. One of the two main business newspapers, Kommersant, is controlled by Boris Berezovsky, while the other – the highly respected Vedomosti – is co-owned by the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Domestic and foreign critics accuse Putin of having orchestrated the trials of oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, and later Mikhail Khodorkovsky as part of an effort by his Kremlin to gain control over the media and large sectors of the Russian economy. For its part, Putin's administration has argued that its actions against the oligarchs are founded in the letter and spirit of the law, and are intended to contain and reverse serious damage inflicted on Russia's economy by years of insider capitalism.

On 24 February 2004, less than a month prior to the elections, Putin dismissed Prime Minister Kasyanov and the entire Russian cabinet and appointed Viktor Khristenko acting prime minister. On March 1, he appointed Mikhail Fradkov to the position.

Second term as President

On March 14, 2004, Putin won re-election to the presidency for a second term, earning 71 percent of the vote. Again, there was massive and one-sided campaigning for Putin by Russian television channels, most of which are state owned and controlled. Nevertheless, the election campaign and the actual balloting were both declared "free and fair" by an international observation mission run by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

On September 13, 2004, following the Beslan school hostage crisis, and nearly-concurrent Chechen terrorist attacks in Moscow, Putin launched an initiative to replace the election of regional governors with a system whereby they would be proposed by the President and approved or disapproved by regional legislatures. Opponents of this measure, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Colin Powell, criticised it as a step away from democracy in Russia and a return to the centrally run political apparatus of the Soviet era. On that same day, Putin also publicly backed a plan by the Central Elections Commission for the election of Duma deputies based entirely on proportional representation, ending the election of half of the legislators from single-member constituencies.

On April 25, 2005, Putin caused some controversy when, in a nationally televised speech before the Duma, he referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." This remark was critically received in the West and in some neighboring states; Putin subsequently clarified that he was not praising the former Soviet Union but rather highlighting in an altogether objective fashion the dramatic impact the collapse of the USSR had had on the world, particularly on the economic and social well-being of the populace from countries making up the former USSR [link] and the displacement of people caused in part by the anti-Russian backlash in many of these countries [link].

One of the most controversial aspects of Putin's second term was the prosecution of Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, President of Yukos oil company. While much of the international press saw this as a reaction against a man who was funding political opponents of the Kremlin, both liberal and Communist, the Russian government has argued that Khodorkovsky was in fact engaged in corrupting a large segment of the Duma to prevent changes in the tax code aimed at taxing windfall profits and closing offshore tax evasion vehicles. Certainly, many of the initial privatizations, including that of Yukos, are widely believed to have been fraudulent (Yukos, valued at some $30bn in 2004, had been privatized for $110 million), and like the other oligarchic groups, the Yukos-Menatep name has been frequently tarred with accusations of links to criminal organisations. Oligarchs who have been more willing to toe the Kremlin line, such as Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Potanin, have not had their fortunes subjected to the same intense and critical examination.

Chechnya

See also: Second Chechen War.

Putin's rise to public office in August 1999 coincided with an aggressive resurgence of the near-dormant conflict in the North Caucasus, when Chechen extremists regrouped and invaded neighbouring Daghestan. Both in Russia and abroad, Putin's public image was forged by his tough handling of this dire challenge. During the autumn 1999 campaign for the Duma, Kremlin-controlled or allied media accused Putin's chief rivals of being soft on terrorism. On assuming the role of acting President on December 31, 1999, Putin proceeded on a previously scheduled visit to Russian troops in Chechnya; one of the earliest images Russians saw of their new leader was the acting president presenting hunting knives to soldiers. Throughout the winter of 2000, Putin's government regularly claimed that victory was at hand. In recent years, with the situation stalemated, Putin has distanced himself from the management of the continuing conflict.

Foreign policy

While President Putin is criticized as an autocrat by some of his Western counterparts, his relationships with US President George W. Bush, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, French President Jacques Chirac, and the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are apparently friendly. Putin's relationship with Germany's new Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is expected to be "cooler" and "more business-like" than his partnership with Gerhard Schröder [link].

During his time in office, Putin has attempted to strengthen relations with other members of the CIS. The "near abroad" zone of traditional Russian influence has again become a foreign policy priority under Putin, as the EU and NATO have grown to encompass much of Central Europe and, more recently, the Baltic states. While tacitly accepting the enlargement of NATO into the Baltic states, Putin attempted to increase Russia's influence over Belarus and Ukraine.

Putin surprised many Russian nationalists and even his own defense minister when, in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States, he agreed to the establishment of coalition military bases in Central Asia before and during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Russian nationalists objected to the establishment of any US military presence on the territory of the former Soviet Union, and had expected Putin to keep the US out of the Central Asian republics, or at the very least extract a commitment from Washington to withdraw from these bases as soon as the immediate military purpose had passed.

During the Iraq crisis of 2003, Putin opposed Washington's move to invade Iraq without the benefit of a United Nations Security Council resolution explicitly authorizing the use of military force. After the official end of the war was announced, American president George W. Bush asked the United Nations to lift sanctions on Iraq. Putin supported lifting of the sanctions in due course, arguing that the UN commission first be given a chance to complete its work on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

During the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Putin visited Ukraine twice before the election to show his support for Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and congratulated him on his alleged victory before the official election results had been announced. Putin's direct support for pro-Russian Yanukovych was widely criticized as unwarranted interference in the affairs of post-Soviet Ukraine.

In 2005, Putin and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder negotiated the construction of a major oil pipeline over the Baltic exclusively between Russia and Germany. Schröder also attended Putin's 53rd birthday in Saint Petersburg the same year.

In May 2006, Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to U.S. President George W. Bush's America as Comrade Wolf, referring to a Russian joke. [CNN report]

Family and personal life

Putin is married to Lyudmila Putina, a former airline stewardess and teacher of German, who was born in Kaliningrad, (formerly Königsberg). They have two daughters, Maria (born 1985) and Yekaterina (Katya) (born 1986 in Dresden). The daughters attended the German School in Moscow (Deutsche Schule Moskau) until his appointment as prime minister.

Putin is a practicing member of the Russian Orthodox Church. His conversion, which most observers agree was sincere, followed a life-threatening fire at his dacha in the early 1990s. Very unusual for communist Russia, his mother had been a regular church-goer. His father was a communist and atheist (although he seems not to have objected to his wife's beliefs).

Putin speaks German with near-native fluency, and has passable English.

Trivia

Judo

One of Putin's favorite sports is the martial art of judo. Putin began judo at the age of 13 and he continues to study judo even today. Putin won competitions in his hometown of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), including the senior championship of Leningrad. He is President of the Yawara Dojo, the same St. Petersburg dojo he studied at as a youth. Putin co-authored a book on his favorite sport, published in English under the title Judo: History, Theory, Practice.

Though he is not the first world leader to practice judo, Putin is the first leader to move forward in the advanced levels. Currently, Putin is a black belt (6th dan) and is best known for his Harai goshi, a sweeping hip throw.

After a state visit to Japan, Putin was invited to the Kodokan Institute and showed the students and Japanese officials different judo techniques.

His daily workout is an hour to an hour-and-a-half in the gym and spends any free time exercising.

Putin's height is 5'5".

Attire

Putin wears a $60,000 Patek Philippe Calatrava watch, worth approximately equivalent to his Presidential salary. Although he is right handed, he wears the watch on his right hand because "...if I wear it on the left wrist, the little winding mechanism faces the hand and is always rubbing against it."

Quotations

Terrorism and

• Putin on Chechen extremists, on September 24, 1999: "We'll follow terrorists everywhere. Should we catch them in an outhouse, we'll whack them in an outhouse." ("мочить в сортире" in Russian):[Grozny gangsters hold sway in a wasteland created by Russia] by Sebastian Smith, December 11, 2004 from the UK Times, URL accessed July 7, 2006.

• In response to those who called Putin to enter talks with Chechen separatists after the Beslan school hostage crisis, on September, 2004: "Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers? No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to childkillers."

• "If you are a Christian, you are in danger. Even if you are an atheist, you are in danger, and if you decide to convert to Islam, this will not save you, either, because traditional Islam is inimical to the conditions and objectives set by the terrorists. If you are prepared to become a most radical Islamist and are prepared to circumcise yourself, I invite you to come to Moscow. I will recommend having the operation done in such a way that nothing will grow for you there anymore." Putin snapping back at a reporter from Le Monde who asked a critical question about the conduct of the war in Chechnya, in November 2002. The quotation was rendered innocuous by his interpreter, but the original was recorded on audio and widely reprinted in Russia.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

• When a reporter asked Putin why his government didn't negotiate with the leaders of Chechen separatists, Putin answered "Russia doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Russia destroys them."^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

• When a reporter asked why he invited Hamas to the Kremlin for talks, Putin answered "Burning bridges – especially in politics – is the easiest, but not the most effective thing to do. This is why we don't rush to declare an organization to be terrorist, and try to work with everyone in this explosive region."

• After the tragedy of Beslan, Putin explained the failure of Russia's Security Services with the sentence "We were weak. And the weak are being beaten."

See also Putin's [Address to the Inhabitants of the Chechen Republic] on March 17, 2003.

Democracy and life in Russia

In response to criticism from US journalist Mike Wallace that his plan to end the direct election of governors and simply appoint them ran counter to the spirit of democracy, Putin replied:

"The principle of appointing regional leaders is not a sign of a lack of democracy. For instance, India is called the largest world democracy. But their governors have always been appointed by the central government and nobody disputes that India is a democracy."

"In the United States, you first elect the electors and then they vote for the presidential candidates. In Russia, the president is elected through the direct vote of the whole population. That might be even more democratic," Putin says. "And you have other problems in your elections," he tells Wallace. "Four years ago your presidential election was decided by the court. The judicial system was brought into it. But we're not going to poke our noses into your democratic system because that's up to the American people." [The whole interview...]

Putin about emigration of talented people from Russia, on June 6, 2003: "If brains are draining, then they exist. It's already good. It means, they are of high quality, otherwise nobody would need them."

From Putin's Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, 2005:

''I will recall once more Russia’s most recent history.

''Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.

''Individual savings were depreciated, and old ideals destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or reformed carelessly. Terrorist intervention and the Khasavyurt capitulation that followed damaged the country's integrity. Oligarchic groups — possessing absolute control over information channels — served exclusively their own corporate interests. Mass poverty began to be seen as the norm. And all this was happening against the backdrop of a dramatic economic downturn, unstable finances, and the paralysis of the social sphere.

''Many thought or seemed to think at the time that our young democracy was not a continuation of Russian statehood, but its ultimate collapse, the prolonged agony of the Soviet system.

''But they were mistaken.

That was precisely the period when the significant developments took place in Russia. Our society was generating not only the energy of self-preservation, but also the will for a new and free life. [Read more...]

From Putin's [Annual Address to the Federal Assembly on May 10, 2006], in which an emphasis was laid on economy and solving problems of demography([see the article] of CSM) and defense:

''"In the working out of a great national program which seeks the primary good of the greater number, it is true that the toes of some people are being stepped on and are going to be stepped on. But these toes belong to the comparative few who seek to retain or to gain position or riches or both by some short cut which is harmful to the greater good." These are fine words and it is a pity that it was not I who thought them up. It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States of America, in 1934.

When the need arose to counter a large-scale attack by international terrorists in the North Caucasus in 1999, the problems in the armed forces became painfully evident. In order to effectively repel the terrorists we needed to put together a group of at least 65,000 men, but the combat ready units in the entire army came to only 55,000 men, and they were scattered throughout the entire country. Our armed forces came to a total of 1,400,000 men but there was no one to fight. In the end boys who had never seen combat before were sent in to fight. I will never forget this. Our task today is to make sure that this never happens again.

Foreign policy

After saying the US shouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place: "But if the U.S. were to leave and abandon Iraq without establishing the grounds for a united and sovereign country, that would definitely be a second mistake." [link]

From [Meeting with the Leaders of the News Agencies of G8 Member Countries]:

[About role of UN] The fact that today issues are discussed openly within the UN and that the UN remains a platform for settling international problems rather than serving the foreign policy interests of any one state makes it not only more universal but absolutely necessary for developing acceptable decisions in today’s international arena. We do not have any other such universal international organization.

[About separatism] ''Russia never raised the issue about joining any territories beyond its borders to the Russian state. And we have no plans to do so.

''I consider that we must develop uniform rules, norms and approaches to punctual events in different regions of the world. Otherwise there will be chaos.

I am very worried about this. And I would like Russia’s concern to be transmitted and shared by all. We must understand that this is not a sports competition in which someone wins something back from someone else.

[About problem of Iran] ''First of all we must develop common approaches with our partners, approaches that would be acceptable to our Iranian partners and that would not restrict their possibilities for using modern technology. At the same time these approaches must completely assuage the international community’s concerns about the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear technologies that could prove dangerous for international peace.

''What form these decisions will take will become clear in the course of discussions with our European and American partners. In any case we welcome the fact that the USA has decided to join the negotiation process. I consider that the American administration has taken a very important step. And this allows the whole process to take on an absolutely new character. In my last conversation with the President of the United States I agreed that Russia should participate in this process. Of course we will also participate in this process.

''Our main position is well known. We are against the use force in any circumstances. That is clear.

We also think it is too early to talk about sanctions. We must engage in a detailed and profound discussion with the Iranian leadership. Only after that will it be possible to speak about the process’ prospects for development. But in any case Russia is ready to participate actively in this process.

[About Ukraine gas scandal] Russia has been delivering energy to Europe for 40 years. There was never a day or any hour that witnessed a failure. And at the beginning of this year Russia provided full, and I want to stress it, the full amount of deliveries to our western European partners and European consumers. To understand why Ukraine, a transit country, illegally siphoned off a significant part of European resources, you must not ask us: you must ask Ukraine.

See also

[Speeches by the President] at the official [website].

Putin-related humour

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