Vladimir Putin Fast Facts
CNN Editorial Research
Here’s a look at the life of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Personal
Birth date: October 7, 1952
Birth place: Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia
Birth name: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
Father: Vladimir Putin, factory foreman
Mother: Maria Putina
Marriage: Lyudmila (Shkrebneva) Putina (July 28, 1983-2014, divorced)
Children: Yekaterina and Maria
Education: Leningrad State University, law, 1975
Religion: Orthodox Christian
Other Facts
Enjoys working out and has a black belt in judo.
Grew up in a communal apartment shared by three families.
Served in the KGB as an intelligence officer before becoming involved in politics.
Timeline
1975 – Joins the Committee for State Security (KGB). Is on the staff of the First Chief Directorate for Foreign Intelligence for the KGB, and is assigned to shadow foreign visitors.
1984 – Is selected to attend the Red Banner Institute of Intelligence, where he learns German and English.
1985 – Is assigned to counterintelligence duties in Dresden, East Germany. Reportedly monitors loyalty of Soviet diplomats.
1990 – Becomes assistant rector (dean) for international affairs at Leningrad State University. Reportedly monitors loyalty of students and shadows foreigners.
1991 – Turns towards politics as he becomes an adviser to one of his law school mentors, Anatoly Sobchak, who is running for mayor of Leningrad. After Sobchak wins the election, Putin is tapped to work in city hall as chairman of the committee for international relations. He resigns from the KGB.
1997 – Putin is named deputy chief administrator of the Kremlin under President Boris Yeltsin.
1998 – Chief of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
1999 – Secretary of the Russian Security Council.
August 9, 1999 – Yeltsin appoints Putin as prime minister.
December 31, 1999 – Yeltsin steps down amid scandal and Putin becomes acting president. He grants Yeltsin immunity from prosecution.
March 26, 2000 – Is elected president of Russia.
May 7, 2000 – Putin is sworn in.
June 16, 2001 – Putin meets with US President George W. Bush and the men hold a joint press conference. Bush tells reporters that during the two-hour meeting, he was able to get a sense of Putin’s soul.
May 24, 2002 – Putin and Bush sign the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, which requires each country to reduce its stockpiles of strategic nuclear warheads over the course of ten years.
March 15, 2004 – Is reelected after campaigning as an independent.
May 7, 2004 – Putin is sworn in for his second term.
April 27, 2005 – Becomes the first Russian leader to visit Israel.
October 4-5, 2005 – Visits British Prime Minister Tony Blair and announces increased cooperation between Russia and Britain to fight terrorism.
September 5, 2006 – Meets South African President Thabo Mbeki during the first visit to sub-Sarahan Africa by a Russian leader.
December 19, 2007 – Named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
March 2, 2008 – Dmitry Medvedev is elected president of Russia.
May 7, 2008 – Just two hours after his presidential swearing in, Medvedev names Putin as prime minister.
August 2008 – Russia engages in a military conflict with neighboring Georgia.
September 24, 2011 – Medvedev calls on the ruling United Russia party to endorse Putin for president in 2012. Putin in turn suggests that Medvedev should take over the role of prime minister if the party wins parliamentary elections in December.
March 4, 2012 – Putin wins a third term as president, with just under 65% of the vote. Critics question the results amid complaints of voter fraud.
May 7, 2012 – Putin is sworn in under tight security. Hundreds of protestors are detained by police.
December 14, 2012 – US President Barack Obama signs the Magnitsky Act, a law that imposes travel and financial restrictions on individuals in Russia suspected of human rights violations. The law is named for Sergey Magnitsky, a lawyer who died under mysterious circumstances in 2009 after finding evidence that Russian officials committed tax fraud.
December 28, 2012 – In response to the Magnitsky act, Putin signs into law a bill that effectively bans US citizens from adopting Russian children. The law also bans US-funded civic groups from operating in Russia.
June 6, 2013 – During an interview broadcast on state-run television, Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, announce that their marriage is over.
September 11, 2013 – Putin publishes an op-ed in the New York Times about the Syrian Civil War.
March 2014 – Putin sends troops into Crimea after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych flees amid violent protests.
August 6, 2014 – Putin signs a decree that bans food and agricultural imports from countries that have imposed sanctions against Russia.
September 28, 2015 – Putin attends the United Nations General Assembly in New York and later meets with Obama. The two leaders discuss Ukraine and Syria, according to senior US officials. It is their first in-person meeting since Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
January 21, 2016 – A UK inquiry is released, laying out evidence that suggests Putin approved the operation to kill former FSB spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.
July 25, 2016 – The FBI announces it has launched an investigation into the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computer system. Although the statement doesn’t indicate that the agency has a particular suspect or suspects in mind, US officials tell CNN they think the cyberattack is linked to Russia.
September 1, 2016 – During a Bloomberg News interview, Putin denies that the Russian government had any involvement in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails.
December 30, 2016 – Putin says that Russia will not expel American diplomats in response to the Obama administration’s new sanctions and expulsion of 35 diplomats from the United States. He says he will instead try to rebuild relations with the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump.
January 6, 2017 – The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases a declassified report concluding that Putin ordered an “influence campaign” aimed at hurting Hillary Clinton and helping Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
January 17, 2017 – At a news conference, Putin says that a damning dossier about Trump is “false” and he dismisses allegations that his country’s security services have been monitoring the US president-elect.
July 7, 2017 – Meets Trump for the first time on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. During a two-hour meeting, the men reportedly discuss allegations of Russian meddling in the US election and the war in Syria, among other things. Hours later, they talk again informally during a dinner with other heads of state.
July 30, 2017 – Putin announces that Russia is implementing a series of measures in response to a new sanctions bill approved by Trump. He says that 755 staffers at US diplomatic missions in Russia will be ousted from their jobs.
March 1, 2018 – During his annual address to Parliament, Putin boasts about the country’s nuclear capabilities, declaring that Russian missiles can elude air defense systems. In a video simulation, nuclear warheads are shown flying through space and raining down on a peninsula that resembles the state of Florida.
March 18, 2018 – Putin wins the election, with 76.7% of the vote, according to Russia’s Central Election Commission. His most prominent challenger, opposition leader Alexei Navalny was barred from running. International election monitors say that the votes were tallied in an orderly manner but they criticize the state-run media coverage of the presidential race, which heavily promoted Putin.
May 7, 2018 – Is sworn in as president for another six years.
July 16, 2018 – Putin and Trump meet in Helsinki and hold a joint news conference. Trump declines to endorse the US government’s assessment that Russia interfered in the election. “I have great confidence in my intelligence people but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump says.
November 28, 2018 – Authorities in the United Kingdom assess that Putin approved a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy. The attack in Salisbury, England sickened Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. One other woman who came into contact with the poison died.
April 25, 2019 – North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un meets with Putin in Vladivostok. The summit includes one-on-one talks, but it does not include any signed agreements or joint statements.
May 14, 2019 – Putin meets with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who says that he hopes the United States and Russia can develop a more cooperative relationship. Pompeo says he wants the countries to work together “to make our two peoples more, and frankly the world, more successful too.”
July 3, 2019 – Putin signs a law suspending Russia’s participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
October 22, 2019 – Putin meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi and the men announce a wide-ranging agreement on Syria, announcing that Russian and Turkish troops will patrol the Turkish-Syrian border. Kurdish forces have about six days to retreat about 20 miles away from the border.
January 15, 2020 – Putin announces plans to push through reforms that would make his successor as president less powerful. Authority would be redistributed giving the Russian parliament and office of prime minister greater clout. The entire government resigns the same day.
March 23, 2021 – Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells CNN Putin received a Covid-19 vaccination, though no video or images of the vaccination process were made available. The spokesman did not disclose which vaccine was used, but did say it was one of three Russian vaccines that have been approved: Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona or CoviVac.
April 5, 2021 – Putin signs constitutional amendments into law which would allow him to seek two more six-year terms when his presidency ends in 2024.
February 24, 2022 – Russian military forces enter Ukraine and begin a full scale assault across airfields, military headquarters, major cities and ports. Putin threatens “those who may be tempted to intervene” on Ukraine’s behalf.
September 21, 2022 – During a speech, Putin threatens to turn to nuclear weapons against Ukraine, “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”
September 30, 2022 – In defiance of international law, Putin announces Russia will annex four Ukrainian regions as Russian territory: Luhansk and Donetsk — home to two Russian-backed breakaway republics where fighting has been ongoing since 2014 — as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, two areas in southern Ukraine that have been occupied by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began.
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