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Vladimir Putin, born in 1952, Russian politician who became the second democratically elected president of Russia in 2000. Putin was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). The son of a factory foreman, he attended law school at Leningrad State University. Upon graduating from the university in 1975, Putin joined the KGB, the secret police of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). From 1975 to 1990 he worked in the KGB’s foreign intelligence service.
Putin returned to Leningrad in 1990 and became an aide to Anatoly Sobchak, the city’s mayor and Putin’s former law professor. In 1994 Putin became first deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg (as the city had been renamed in 1991), a post he held until Sobchak failed to win reelection in 1996. Shortly after Sobchak left office, Putin was invited to Moscow to work in the administration of President Boris Yeltsin. In 1997 he was appointed head of the department responsible for carrying out Yeltsin’s decrees. The next year he became chief of the Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the two main organizations into which the KGB had been divided when the USSR broke up in 1991. In August 1999 Yeltsin appointed Putin prime minister of Russia.
As prime minister, Putin had to deal with renewed war in Chechnya, a breakaway republic in the North Caucasus region of southern Russia. As the Russian army entered Chechnya for the second time, the Russian media hailed Putin as a strong leader, and his popularity among Russians grew.
When Yeltsin appointed Putin prime minister, he declared that Putin was his choice for the next president of Russia. Parliamentary elections held in December 1999 saw substantial gains by the Unity bloc, which made support of Putin the only item in its platform. Two weeks later Yeltsin resigned, and Putin became acting president of Russia until presidential elections could be held.
As acting president, Putin pursued the war in Chechnya despite Western criticism of the war effort. His popularity rose as the Chechen insurgents were driven back and Russia regained control over Chechnya. In the presidential elections, which were held in March 2000, Putin was elected to a full term and won almost 53 percent of the vote.
Putin was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term in March 2004 with 71 percent of the vote. During Putin’s first term, Russia’s economy improved dramatically, and many voters credited Putin for this development. However, Putin also benefited from the control he exercised over state-run media, having placed all formerly independent television stations under state control. International election observers noted that the state-run media displayed a “clear bias” in favor of Putin and denied access to other candidates.
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