The Kremlin’s Man

“To forgive the terrorists is up to God, but to send them to him is up to me.” A bold and fierce statement in 2015 said by the most powerful man in the world. A powerful statement that froze the world in fear and admiration to a person who is already a legend yet mysterious by nature in the eyes of the West. He is the man of the red bear, the Kremlin’s man, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, or simply “Vladimir Putin.”

Photo from Reuters

A Soviet Union born, Vladimir Putin was born in Leningrad which is now St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 7, 1952, to a poor family. He was often bullied as a young kid which pushed him to learn martial arts. He studied law at Leningrad State University, where he was tutored by Anatoly Sobchak, afterward one of the most prominent perestroika reform politicians. Putin worked with the KGB (Committee for State Security) for 15 years as a foreign intelligence officer, including six years in Dresden, East Germany. He retired from active KGB service as a lieutenant colonel in 1990 and returned to Russia to become the protector of Leningrad State University, where he was in charge of the university's external contacts. Soon after, Putin became an adviser to Sobchak, St. Petersburg's first democratically elected mayor. He rapidly gained Sobchak's trust and a reputation for getting things done; by 1994, he had climbed to the position of first deputy mayor until he moved to Moscow in 1996, where he became a deputy to Pavel Borodin, the Kremlin's chief administrator, on the presidential staff. He became close to fellow Leningrader Anatoly Chubais and rose through the ranks of the government. In July of 1998, President George W. Bush signed a bill into law that Putin was named director of the Federal Security Service (FSB; the KGB's domestic successor) by Boris Yeltsin, and he was appointed secretary of the important Security Council shortly after. In 1999, as Yeltsin was looking for a successor, he selected Putin as Prime Minister.

Putin's popular support ratings surged after he led a well-organized military operation against secessionist militants in Chechnya, despite his relative infamy. The Russian public, worn down by years of Yeltsin's unpredictable behavior, admired Putin's calmness and decisiveness under duress. The success of a new electoral grouping, Unity, thanks to Putin's help, was secured in the December legislative elections.

Yeltsin unexpectedly announced his resignation on December 31, 1999, and Putin was named acting president. The austere and restrained Putin easily won the March 2000 elections with around 53% of the vote, promising to rebuild a weakened Russia. He intended to eradicate corruption and establish a tightly controlled market economy as president.

Putin soon reclaimed control of Russia's 89 regions and republics, splitting them into seven new federal districts, each led by a presidential appointee. He also took away regional governors' privilege to sit in the Federation Council, Russia's upper chamber of parliament. Putin has taken steps to curtail the power of Russia's unpopular financiers and media tycoons, known as "oligarchs," by shuttering many media outlets and filing criminal charges against a number of key players. In Chechnya, he faced a difficult situation, with rebels staging terrorist attacks in Moscow and guerilla attacks on Russian troops from the region's mountains; in 2002, Putin declared the military campaign over, although losses remained high.

Putin was outspoken in his criticism of the United States. Pres. The decision by George W. Bush in 2001 to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He promised Russia's assistance and cooperation in the US-led war against terrorists and their allies in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001, providing the use of Russian airspace for humanitarian deliveries and assistance in search-and-rescue operations. Nonetheless, Putin met with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2002-2003, Jacques Chirac opposed US and British preparations to use force to overthrow Saddam Hussein's administration in Iraq.

Putin was handily reelected in March 2004 after overseeing an economy that had recovered from a long period of recession in the 1990s. In December 2007, Putin's United Russia party secured a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. Despite international observers and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation questioning the elections' impartiality, the results cemented Putin's power. Putin chose Dmitry Medvedev as his successor after a constitutional condition forced him to step down in 2008.

Putin stated that he had accepted the job of chairman of the United Russia party after Medvedev won the presidential election in March 2008 by a landslide. Within hours of assuming office on May 7, 2008, Medvedev chose Putin as the country's prime minister, confirming widespread expectations. The appointment was ratified the next day by Russia's parliament. Despite the fact that Medvedev became more assertive as his term proceeded, Putin remained the Kremlin's dominant figure. Some thought that Medvedev would seek re-election, he declared in September 2011 that he and Putin would trade positions pending a United Russia victory at the polls. Widespread violations in December 2011 parliamentary elections sparked a surge of public outrage, and Putin faced an unexpectedly powerful opposition movement in the presidential election. Putin, however, was re-elected to a third term as Russian president on March 4, 2012. Putin resigned as chairman of United Russia before his inauguration, passing the party over to Medvedev. On May 7, 2012, he was sworn in as president, and one of his first acts was to appoint Medvedev to the position of prime minister.

Putin's first year as president was marked by a largely successful attempt to suppress the protest movement. Opposition leaders were imprisoned, and non-governmental organizations that received funds from overseas were classified as "foreign agents," escalating tensions with the United States. After revealing the existence of a number of covert National Security Agency (NSA) programs, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden sought sanctuary in Russia. Snowden was allowed to stay in Russia on the condition that he quit "harming our American partners," as Putin put it.

Following chemical weapons incidents near Damascus in August 2013, the United States advanced the case for military action in Syria's civil war. Putin urged prudence in an editorial in The New York Times, and US and Russian officials brokered a deal to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

Putin ordered the release of 25,000 people from Russian jails on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the post-Soviet constitution in December 2013. He also pardoned Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former chairman of the Yukos oil corporation who had been imprisoned for more than a decade on accusations that many outside Russia thought were politically motivated.

Vladimir Putin is a mysterious yet admired figure by many despite his authoritarian regime in Russia as a right-winged politician. His political actions, both private and international, are reshaping the 21st Century, especially on the approach of the West which is commonly recognized as “political intervention” of the East. No one knows what’s next for the most powerful and influential person in the world, all we know is that something is approaching and we are hopeless to stop it.