Putin won his first presidential election in March 2000 and his second term in 2004 (file photo)
Moscow, Russia:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has built a system of domestic repression and confrontation with the West over the past two decades, will enter his fifth term on Sunday.
Since the previously little-known KGB agent became president on New Year’s Eve 1999, he has consolidated power by bringing oligarchs to heel, banning any real opposition and turning Russia into an authoritarian state.
The Kremlin leader was set for his biggest-ever electoral victory on Sunday, with exit polls conducted by state firms and the first wave of official results showing him with more than 87% of the vote.
His most prolific critic Alexei Navalny died under mysterious circumstances in an Arctic prison colony last month. Other opponents are serving long prison terms or have gone into exile.
Abroad, 71-year-old Putin has taken the lead in challenging Western dominance.
After invading Ukraine in February 2022, he further tightened his grip on power, effectively silencing public dissent over the war through court proceedings and imprisonment.
His rule is likely to be affected by the war in Ukraine, which has killed thousands and triggered unprecedented Western sanctions that have plunged the Russian economy into severe tensions.
After he ordered the army to enter Ukraine in the early morning of February 24, 2022, large-scale anti-war protests occurred within a few days, but they were quickly quelled.
suppress rebellion
But months later, as Russia failed to overthrow the Ukrainian government in the opening war, the government was forced to announce partial mobilization, sparking more demonstrations.
The most serious challenge to Putin’s long rule came in June 2023, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, a long-time ally and leader of the Wagner mercenary group, declared a mutiny to overthrow Russia’s military leadership.
The bloody uprising threatens to damage Putin’s self-proclaimed image as a strategic genius, something uncomfortable for a ruler who likes to compare himself to Peter the Great, a reform-minded emperor who expanded Russian borders.
But in recent months, Putin has demonstrated his enduring power.
Domestic opposition has subsided, the economy is growing again, Russian troops are making gains in eastern Ukraine, and he has resumed foreign travel.
Putin started out as an intelligence officer and began his political career in the mayor’s office of his native St. Petersburg in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed.
Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, appointed him head of the FSB security service in 1998 and prime minister the following year.
early hope for reform
It was a carefully planned strategy that culminated in Yeltsin being named acting president when he resigned.
Putin won his first presidential election in March 2000 and his second term in 2004.
His rise initially fueled hopes that Russia would reform and become a predictable democratic partner to the West on the global stage.
Putin has won popular support by promising to bring stability to a country still reeling from a decade of humiliation and economic chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
After two terms as president, Putin returned as prime minister in 2008 to circumvent the constitutional ban on serving more than two consecutive terms as head of state.
But despite pro-democracy protests in Moscow, he maintained a firm grip on power and returned to the presidency in 2012, winning a fourth term in 2018.
In 2021, he jailed his loudest rival, Alexei Navalny, and served three years in prison until his death in February 2024 under opaque circumstances.
After the start of hostilities in Ukraine, the crackdown on the opposition movement intensified.
Thousands of Russians have been sentenced to long prison terms under newly strengthened censorship laws.
“New Iron Curtain”
Sanctions imposed by the West have effectively cut Russia off from the global banking system, exacerbating the siege mentality of the Russian leadership.
In October 2023, Putin accused Europe of creating a “new Iron Curtain” and said that Russia was building a “new world” not based on Western hegemony.
He has also increasingly pushed a nationalist and socially conservative domestic agenda, including recent laws targeting Russia’s LGBTQ community.
The Russian strongman, unpopular among Western leaders after invading Ukraine, has sought to shift his strategic focus eastward, attracting India and China by increasing energy exports.
After shrinking in 2022, the Russian economy began to return to growth last year despite high inflation, a depreciating ruble and a sharp increase in defense spending.
The war’s initial goal of overthrowing the Ukrainian government failed, with Russia forced into a series of humiliating setbacks by a determined defense by much smaller Ukrainian forces.
increased confidence
But as the conflict enters its third year, Putin is increasingly confident about Russia’s prospects on the battlefield – a topic he has avoided for months.
Russian troops have successfully thwarted Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive, raising doubts about Kiev’s ability to hold on to its front lines amid delays in the supply of much-needed Western military supplies.
Wrangling in Washington has stalled $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine in recent months, prompting warnings from the U.S. government.
In February, Russian troops captured the former Ukrainian stronghold of Avdievka, giving Moscow its first major territorial gain in more than a year of fighting over the town.
Nearly two weeks later, the Kremlin leader struck a defiant tone in his State of the Union address, vowing that his troops would fight to the end.
“They will not retreat, they will not fail, they will not betray,” Putin said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
