Vladimir Putin

Longest serving Russian leader since Stalin

Former KGB agent

• Stands for Committee for State Security

Practices martial arts (sambo and judo) and hunting

• Sambo is a Soviet martial art focused on wrestling

• Judo is a Japanese martial art focused on grappling and wrestling, has a black belt in it

• Only world leader to be at an advanced level in martial arts

Born and raised in St Petersburg

Grandfather was a cook for Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

Part of the Young Pioneers growing up, a youth group that was run by the Communist party in the Soviet Union

At Saint Petersburg University he met Anatoly Sobchak

• Assistant professor

• Coauthored the constitution of the Russian Federation

• First democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg, Putin served as his advisor

Berlin Wall fell in November 1989

After KGB was advisor to Sobchak’s mayoral admin

Then moved to Moscow and became part of Boris Yeltsin’s presidential administration

After Yeltsin resigned, Putin became President of Russia

Kursk submarine disaster

• Kursk submarine sank, Putin got criticized for not acting quickly on saving the crew or submarine

First Russian leader to visit Israel

Beslan school siege

• Terrorists held over 1000 people hostage at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. A lot of them were children

• Terrorists demanded Chechyan independence

• Russian military used artillery to clear out the school and this resulted in a lot of civilians and children dying

Name Time Person of the Year in 2007

• Magazine cover won the photographer the World Press Photo award

When Putin switched to Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev served as President

Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist that critiqued Putin and his war in Chechnya, was murdered

The Kremlin is the name of the fortified complex in Moscow which used to serve as the royal residence of the Russian emperor and is now the official residence of the Russian President

Involved in Syrian Civil War and showed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Annexed Crimea and launched invasion of Ukraine

• Largest city in Crimea is Sevastopol

• Crimea is surrounded by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov

• Oblasts are the names of administrative divisions in Ukraine

Survived the Wagner Group Rebellion