in foreign investment saw the Russian economy and living standards improve significantly. Putin's rule increased stability, while transforming Russia into an authoritarian state. In 2008, Putin took the post of prime minister, while Dmitry Medvedev was elected president for one term, to hold onto power despite legal term limits; this period has been described as a "tandemocracy." Following a diplomatic crisis with neighboring Georgia, the Russo-Georgian War took place during 1–12 August 2008, resulting in Russia recognising two separatist states in the territories that it occupies in Georgia. It was the first European war of the 21st century. In 2014, following a revolution in Ukraine, Russia invaded and annexed the neighboring country's Crimean peninsula, and contributed to the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine with direct intervention by Russian troops. Russia steeply escalated the war by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The invasion marked the largest conventional war in Europe since World War II, and was met with widespread international condemnation, as well as expanded sanctions against Russia. As a result, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March, and was suspended from the United Nations Human Rights Council in April. In September 2022, Putin proclaimed the annexation of 15% of Ukraine's landmass in its Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, the largest seizure attempted in Europe since World War II. Putin and Russian-installed leaders signed treaties of accession, internationally unrecognized and widely denounced as illegal, despite the fact that Russian forces have been unable to fully occupy any of the four regions. The European Parliament designated Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and as a state that "uses means of terrorism" in November 2022, citing attacks against civilians, war crimes, and atrocities. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly designated "the Russian state under the current regime [as] a terrorist one" and called for the establishment of "an international tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression committed by Russia with its war against Ukraine." The European Commission announced its support for the efforts to create an international criminal tribunal to prosecute Russia's crimes in the same month and permanently seize all assets held by Russia and its oligarchs to compensate Ukraine. The Council of Europe also called for an international criminal tribunal to prosecute Russian crimes. Geography Russia's vast landmass stretches over the easternmost part of Europe and the northernmost part of Asia. It