Published 28th Feb, 2022

By Tola Owoyele

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has continued to generate a lot of debates across the world. The move has also fetched Europe’s biggest country many sanctions from organisations, with many more likely to come in the coming days.

Despite the sanctions however, Vladimir Putin, Russian president, and the man in the eye of the storm, has continued with his expansionist moves.

On Monday, Michael Fabricant, a British member of parliament, branded Putin ‘a mad dog that is out of control’.

Many have also called Putin unprintable names because of his policies, especially on matters involving Russia’s relationship with smaller nations surrounding it.

But, who exactly is Vladimir Putin?

BOY FROM LENINGRAD

Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952, in Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg) to Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, a foreman in a metal factory, and Marina Ivanova Putina, a homemaker. He is his parent’s only surviving child.

By the time he was 16, Putin had become a top-ranked expert at Sambo, a Russian combination of judo and wrestling. Two years later, he studied law at Leningrad State University and graduated in 1975. Putin was generally regarded as a student with ‘near perfect’ grades by teachers who taught him right from his childhood days.

Interestingly, as a teenager, he was fascinated by spy movies. This later played a significant part in his journey into becoming one of the most powerful leaders in the world.

KGB SPY

Rather than practice as a lawyer after graduating from the University, Putin joined the KGB, the Russian Secret Service, in 1975. This decision was a product of his dream of becoming a Russian spy.

Before landing the job, Putin had emerged as the sole successful candidate out of one hundred applicants vying for the same position at the time.

He worked as a Russian undercover agent/spy for years, serving in the part of Germany formerly known as East Germany or the German Democratic Republic (GDR). At a point, he was responsible for the recruitment of foreigners working to gather information for KGB intelligence.

POLITICAL CAREER

After the reunification of Germany in 1990, Putin returned to Russia. In 1991, he left the KGB with the rank of a Colonel to face politics.

In 1994, Putin became the Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg. He would experience a steady progression in his political career. In March 1999, after just eight years doing mainstream politics, Putin was appointed Secretary of Russia’s Security Council by Boris Yeltsin, the then Russian President.

The council advised the president on matters of foreign policy, national security, military and law enforcement.

PRIME MINISTER PUTIN

In August 1999, Yeltsin appointed Putin as prime minister. Putin’s appointment was greeted with criticism. Many Russians felt he was too inexperienced and unworthy of succeeding Yeltsin who was ill at the time.

However, the criticism became praises when Putin aggressively pursued a war in Chechnya, a constituent republic of Russia, within three months. He became so popular after crushing terrorists in the region.

PRESIDENT PUTIN

In December 1999, an ailing Boris Yeltsin shockingly stepped down from office as president, naming Putin as acting president.

On March 26, 2000, Putin was elected president out of a field of eleven candidates. Due to his background as a KGB agent, the west struggled because they had little information about him.

His history as a spy also caused many to question whether he should be feared as an enemy of the free world. Soon, Putin showed signs of a brutal leader.

He would soon be regarded as a soft-spoken but stone-faced leader by the west. Putin first served as Russian president from 2000 to 2008, and then from 2012 till date, making him the longest currently serving European president after Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.

ABUSIVE AND MURDEROUS RULE

In an Interview he granted to the CBS in December 2016, John McCain, a former US senator and statesman, described Putin as ‘a thug, murderer, killer and KGB agent’.

Putin reportedly created a regime under which opponents are murdered and political prisoners are locked up for years. Minority rights are suppressed, opposition is quashed and foreign territories are forcefully annexed.

‘KILLER‘

On the list of people suspected to have been murdered based on orders from Putin are Boris Nemtsov, a liberal politician; Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist and Alexander Litvinenko, a self-exiled former Russian spy.

A UK government report once claimed that Litvinenko died in London, his new city of residence, from polonium poisoning, in an operation believed to have been approved by Putin.

Before their untimely death, Politkovskaya and Litvinenko had tried to investigate a series of bombings that killed 300 people in four Russian cities in 1999, when Putin was prime minister.

IMPRISONING DISSENTERS

According to a list from Memorial, a Russian human rights group, over 100 people were being held in Russian prisons for their political beliefs in 2016.

In this, Putin’s Russia was seen as continuing the traditions that are quite common in the former Soviet Union, where political dissenters are subjected to hard labour in Siberia.

Among the famous past Siberian prisoners were Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch; Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist protest punk rock and performance art group; Nadiya Savchenko, an Ukrainian pilot and Oleg Sentsov, an Ukrainian filmmaker.

SUPPRESSING POLITICAL OPPOSITION

Under Putin, Russia has witnessed the suppression of political opposition through different methods. These methods range from laws limiting free assembly and other civil rights gathering to jailing protestors for vague offenses.

The Russian government has in the past been accused of using its courts to witch-hunt and convict strong political opponents.

The Putin leadership has also been constantly accused of police intimidation and murder. Prominent opponents have been forced into silence or exile.

ANNEXATION OF CRIMEA

In 2014, Putin attracted world condemnation when Russia annexed Crimea, a territory that was originally under Ukraine.

Despite condemnation from many nations, Russia has not stopped encouraging secessionist groups from breaking away from Ukraine. The Putin-led has also never denied sponsoring rebels in the eastern part of Ukraine.

In his latest move, Putin’s Russia has cited part 7, article 51 of the United Nations charter as valid grounds for recognising the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, two territories under sovereign Ukraine, as independent breakaway states.

He has also said Russia invaded Ukraine because of an invitation his government received from Donbas People’s Republic.

Share on Social Media