Putin's Russa up to 2011

Putin's economic reforms

A 13% flat tax and new land/civil codes stabilised the economy after the privatisation scheme created government debt

Economic statistics under Putin (1998-2011)

Unemployment decreased from 13.04% to 7.88%; GDP rose from $1.25 trillion to $2.3 trillion

Putin's election

Won the presidential election in his own right on 7 May 2000; 2000 inauguration came with an over 80% approval rating

Putin's campaign rhetoric

Campaign slogan of "putting Chechnyan terrorists in the toilet" and promising Russia would be "respected all over the world"

Vertical power bills

6 days after being elected, Putin passed bills allowing him to replace elected upper house members with his own, remove elected governors without evidence or trial, and extend terms from 4 to 6 years

First Act, May 2000

Grouped 89 Federal Subjects into 7 districts (previously they had their own heads, parliaments and constitutions); gained the right to dismiss them in July and to nominate them in 2004

Masha Gessen on Putin

Journalist stated "Putin paranoid…" - noting the rise in political violence

Anna Politkovskaya

Journalist shot dead in the lobby of her apartment in October 2006

Alexander Litvinenko

Former head of security forces, poisoned in London after accusing the government of involvement in Politkovskaya's murder

Electoral manipulation

Censorship laws refused to print opposition campaign advertisements or air commercials; over 1 million elderly voters were deleted from the polls

Tandemocracy

Real power remained with Putin while he served as Medvedev's Prime Minister

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Former CEO of Yukos Oil - Putin eliminated him as a rival; arrested for fraud in 2003

2004 centralisation

Putin announced he would appoint all regional governors and the mayor of Moscow, and created and would run the Public Chamber to review Lower House bills

Kursk submarine disaster

August 2000 explosion killed 118; Western media depicted Putin's smirk after delaying rescue efforts, saying "it sank"

US Ambassador McFaul on Putin's Russia

"Destruction of free media, threats to civil society and an unmitigated corruption of justice"

State media statistics

An estimated 60% of newspapers were state owned (as were laws over internet access); Radio Rossii broadcast to 120 million daily; 3 main TV channels covered 90% of the country

Dubrovka Theatre siege

2002 - 130 dead after the theatre was pumped full of narcotic gas; perpetrated by Chechen Republic terrorists

Beslan School Hostage Crisis

September 2004 - Chechen rebels took 1,100 hostages, leading to 200 children dead

Putin Doctrine

Coined by Leon Aron - aimed at reasserting Russia's role as a regional and world power, recovering Soviet assets lost in 1991

Munich speech

10 February 2007 - denounced the US for "overstepping its national borders in every way", claiming NATO was not an instrument of international law but a "political and military alliance"

Response to NATO expansion

Invaded Georgia after NATO offered fast-tracked membership in 2008

Defence budget under Putin

$29 billion in 2000 to $64 billion in 2011 - as a KGB officer he wanted to "remilitarise" Russian society, returning Russia to Soviet ideals of military strength and global status

Chechnya referendum

2003 - 95.5% in the breakaway region supported reintegration with Russia

Gas politics with Ukraine

2006-09 - Russia halted all gas deliveries to Ukraine after it sought ties with Europe

Putin on the collapse of communism

Called it "the major geopolitical disaster of the century" (2005)

Territorial aggression

Annexed Abkhazia and South Ossetia, invaded Georgia, then annexed the Crimea region in 2014