“We don't need a weakened government but a strong government that would take responsibility for the rights of the individual and cares for the society as a whole.” Vladimir Putin
Putin is a Russian politician and a former intelligence officer who is now serving as President of Russia for the fourth time while he has served as the Prime Minister of the country from 2008 to 2012. Putin has been a significant figure regarding the matters of Eurasia specifically and of the world generally. The return of Russia to world matters is credited to Putin, especially after the fall of the USSR and a decade of disappointment for the Russians. Due to remaining in the power for a long time, Putin has understood the mindset of the public and the results of all the elections give a clear explanation as to why Putin survived so long. His experience in the secret service agencies in the former Soviet Union and over-the-time maturity in policies became salient features of his reign. Today, any foreign policy in any major power of the world cannot be formulated without thinking about Russia and Putin.
1.2 Family Background
Vladimir Putin was born on Oct 7, 1952, in Leningrad, a city in the former USSR, renamed St Petersburg afterward. At the time of the birth of Putin, Leningrad was just recovering from the massive destruction of the Second World War as it was besieged and heavily bombarded by Germans for almost 900 days.” …a city of hunger, poverty, destruction, aggression, and death”. (Gessen, 2012). Residents of Leningrad were living in flats locally called kommunalka and here’s where Putin and his family lived in his early childhood days along with other families of the city.
His parents Maria and Putin were among the survivors of the siege. His father (Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin) was a former military man and was wounded in the early Soviet-German war. He was badly wounded during this war while fighting against the Germans to save their city, Leningrad. Later on, he worked as a toolmaker and foreman in many industries. His mother (Maria Ivanovna Putina (Shelomova)) was a factory worker. Putin was the third son of his parents but unfortunately, neither of the other two could live long enough.
1.2.1 Marriage
Lyudmila was a student of philology at Leningrad University. Putin met Lyudmila when she was a flight attendant on a domestic airline. They married after some time and welcomed their first daughter Maria before Putin’s departure to Germany. Their second daughter Ekaterina was born in Dresden in 1986. They named their daughter in honor of their grandmas. Putin and his wife Lyudmila parted their ways after 30 years in 2013 when they announced their separation in an interview.
1.3 Education
From the time of 1960-1968, he went to Primary School No. 193 and then to High School No. 281in Leningrad. The High School Putin was attending was a Chemistry-directed school. During their school years, Putin was more a thug than a student as he in his interview with his biographers told: “of course, I was not a pioneer, I was a hooligan.” But this was his status until the sixth grade. From hereon he pushed himself harder academically as well from a discipline perspective and was ultimately rewarded by being included in “Young Pioneers” and ultimately to be elected its chairman. At the age of ten or eleven he got interested in martial arts but his parents did not like it at first. (Vladimir Putin)
His determination to work for the state secret services intelligence got him through the difficult scrutiny of a prestigious university, the State University of Leningrad and finally he was admitted as a law student. He did his undergraduate thesis on “The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law”. He completed his graduation in International Law in 1975. (Hoffman, 2000)
1.4 KGB
1.4.1 What is KGB?
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, KGB was a secret service intelligence agency created in 1954. It was considered the “sword and shield of the Communist Party”. It became the counter-acting agency of the USA’s CIA during the Cold War. It not only conducted foreign operations but also watched over the activities of its nationals in order to secure the political benefits of the Communist Party. KGB hired a very large number of young people as spies and undercover agents to work for it. Mostly they were appointed within the country to keep an eye on the activities of political opponents. Senior KGB officials including its head were involved in a coup against reformer Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. After the decline of the USSR, KGB was succeeded by FSB, which was operated by the state. Before becoming Prime Minister, Putin also became the head of FSB.
1.4.2 Why KGB?
Why did he join KGB, remains an unanswered question? But one can get a clue from the era when KGB was fully operative in USSR. In the 1970s, KGB was considered as “the sword and the shield” of the revolution. Then it was very common for boys of Putin’s age to get attracted by the shows and movies of that time. Moreover, KGB had a dark side. It had its spies and working machinery in all those places where youth could have an attachment; in schools, factories, and different institutions to allure young people. Two perspectives can be helpful to understand why Putin went to KGB. The first one is that Putin and youth like him had the urge to fight against the prevailing imperialism at that time. Second is Putin’s strong patriotism that pushed him to go against those who were, in his thinking, doing wrong to the motherland by aiding foreign powers remaining within Russia. Whether internal or external factors mattered, he was pleased to join KGB at once. (Kipp, 2001)
1.4.3 His Desire to Join
A year before finishing his high school, probably at 16, he went to KGB headquarters and asked for his recruitment. Officials told him that the best way to get recruited was to serve in the military or to study law. (Sakwa, 2007).
When he was in his fourth year in the university, he was contacted by and was assigned to work for KGB, because he was “energetic, flexible and brave but most importantly he was good at connecting with people and that was a good quality for an officer of KGB”.
After university, Putin spent 6 months in KGB officer training in Leningrad and a year’s training in Moscow. In 1984, he joined Andropov Red Banner Institute a spy school in Moscow for his trip to Germany. He worked in the counter-intelligence section and afterward he was transferred to First Chief Directorate where his job was to do surveillance on foreigners and consular officials. (Hoffman, 2000).
1.4.4 Posting to Dresden
He was assigned to work for KGB in Dresden, an industrial city in East Germany. Putin and other staff of the KGB worked against West Germany and US military bases. Their common enemy was NATO. They recruited young agents for KGB (Putin I). Putin’s stay in Dresden was marked with mostly office work and report writing like most of the agents of the KGB. “My ideas about the KGB were based on romantic stories about the work of intelligence agents. Without any exaggeration you could say I was the successful product of the Soviet patriotic upbringing”. Putin was not the spy that is often quoted in the books embedded with romantic stories of espionage and colorful events but his job was to spy on dissidents and German citizens to recruit more informers for KGB. That was not much of a lofty work. (Knight, 2000) He was promoted to the rank of major in the KGB. He was awarded with a bronze medal in the German Democratic Republic for his Faithful Service to the National Peoples’ Army.
1.4.5 Recall from Dresden
At the fall of the Berlin Wall, huge demonstrations broke out in Communist Germany that ultimately led to the collapse of the Communist government in East Germany. Mass protests were staged around the KGB headquarters and officials had to burn their files and all their data. (Gessen, 2012). Putin came back from East Germany and got a new job, nevertheless different from what he loved to do i.e. spying, the Leningrad University from where he had graduated. The title of his job was Assistant Chancellor for foreign relations. Putin was on Active Reserve from KGB so it seemed a perfect job for Putin. His duty was to report to the vice-rector of the university. (Hoffman, 2000). Though he was back from Germany, he was still secretly working for KGB in order to recruit new agents and to closely observe the student activities at the university. (Sakwa, 2007, p. 10)
1.4.5 Resignation
In Aug 1991, there was a coup against president Gorbachev by senior officials of the government and security agencies. This led to the devastation of the USSR and the end of Gorbachev. As soon as Putin found that some of the officials of the KGB were involved in the coup, he resigned from KGB as Lieutenant Colonel on 20th August 1991. (Sakwa, 2007)
1.5 Political Influence of Antony Sobchak
Mikhail Gorbachev had come into power in 1985 he had some different plans than what the KGB had expected or wanted to pursue. Due to his loose policies towards all dissidents and a lot of sanctions were softened if not completely lifted. This made people gather around and resulted in mass protests and various riots in East Germany as well as in other parts of the Soviet Union. A new system of governance and the partial democratic procedure was appreciated by Gorbachev and that is why Leningrad had to choose its new mayor (head of the city council). Anatoly Sobchak, a law professor at Leningrad University was elected as mayor of St Petersburg (Leningrad). He had taught at a police academy in Leningrad. Sobchak was a forceful and mesmerizing speaker who was a member of an interregional group of Sakharov’s Supreme Soviet. Sakharov was a democratic-mind politician. Later, Sobchak joined the Communist Party. He became the head of the city council of St Petersburg. Putin came back from East Germany and got a new job, nevertheless different from what he loved to do i.e. spying, the Leningrad University from where he had graduated. The title of his job was Assistant Chancellor for foreign relations. Putin was on Active Reserve from KGB so it seemed like a perfect job for Putin. Putin was a former student of Sobchak and had attended lectures in the 70s. Sobchak offered Putin, his former student a job to work as an adviser and Putin accepted happily.
1.6 Kremlin Years
In 1996, the mayor of St Petersburg, Sobchak, ran for re-election but lost. So Putin left Sobchak and moved to the country's capital to find a job in the presidential staff as deputy head of presidential property management. During their work in the Kremlin, he also completed his Ph.D. thesis on economics at the St Petersburg State Mining Institute. In March 1997, he became the Deputy Chief of staff to Pavel Borodin who was Chief Administrator in the Kremlin; in July 1998 he was the head of the FSB, the successor of the former KGB. And ultimately, head of the National Security in March 1999.
In the summer of 1999(August 1999), Yeltsin appointed Putin as prime minister of the country. Meanwhile, terrorist activities in the country were in full swing, even the capital was not secured from their effect. Putin worked diligently to uproot the outlaws and was, soon, in the eyes of the whole public. As Boris Yeltsin developed more and more confidence in Putin due to his strong background in the intelligence services combined with his straightforward action plan towards the unity and integration of Russia, he believed in Putin to be his next successor as President. So right before the start of a new millennium, on Dec 31, 1999, Putin became the Acting President of Russia.
1.7 Factors involved in shaping the outlook of Putin
Putin’s current persona has been influenced by a lot of factors throughout his life. Many of them are like Soviet and Russian backgrounds and contexts in which Putin grew, lived, and worked. His keen interest in the history and literature of Russia, his law studies at Leningrad University, his training and work at KGB in Russia and then in East Germany, his companions and colleagues in Moscow, his days in St Petersburg as a senior official, his experience of the 90s and then in bureaucratic years; from deputy to the prime minister and then president. All this added little or more to Putin’s vision and ideological development. (Gaddy, 2013)
1.8 Domestic Implications
Putin followed what may be called “Liberal Nationalism”, in order to stabilize the endangered society that was left to perish after the shameful incident of the 90s. He tried to eliminate the center-opposing elements though he partially succeeded in the early years he put an iron hand policy towards administrative matters to ensure a strong hold on those elements. He hit the Russians at the core of their heart and highlighted the most imminent issues like the lost national prestige, shattered economy, social demoralization, separatist elements, and terrorism. The events that made Putin famous and known among the public during his years of premiership were terrorism in Chechnya, strengthening the nation, and imposition of law and order on the pig-headed elite of the society. (Turin, 2002) Putin has been undermining the needs of a modern nation needs while pursuing his heroics during his long regime. The need for social welfare state and fulfillment of basic human rights which a modern state ought to accomplish has been a loophole in Putin’s colorful adventure of Russian prestige building. His journey continued to circle around foreign policy and “make Russia great again”. But people began to be disillusioned as the state failed to provide the public with what became more important to the masses after Putin reaped the fruits of the strong trust of the people. Russia started to come out of the economic darkness and grew well. Russia began to restore its global prestige and made prominent developments. It coped with the issue of terrorism, and separatist dilemmas, it overcame the center-peripheral problems, it rehabilitated the law and order situation, it decreased the influence of the oligarchs, it tried to present a better picture to the world to catch investments from foreign, it boosted its gas industry but what remains, up to now, the most under-developed area is public welfare and facilities. Putin wants to start different projects regarding this situation like health, employment reforms, and spending a reasonable amount of the GDP on the people but his administration lacks behind as compared to the countries of the same lot like China. (Bershidsky, 2019)
1.9 Putin’s Political Ideology
There has been ambiguity about political ideology of Putin whether Putin wanted to lead Russia to a highly opposed state to that of the West or to make it concurrent to Western lines of democracy. But Putin seems to have his own set of norms and values and he tries to reshape Russia’s ideology according to his own criteria. His actions, decisions, and policies have reflected a considerable response to what he wants to change in Russia and what he wants to pursue regarding the Russian identity. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin tried to westernize the Russian society and political path and did well though Yeltsin was a little inconsistent as compared to the former. But for Putin, Russia’s economic interests are more important than its political linkages with Europe and the world. Putin seems to pursue a Hobbesian ideology with respect to Russia’s place in the outer world. “In Putin’s opinion, economic strength is the basis of survival in that harsh competition; to be inferior economically is to be vulnerable politically and militarily.” Indeed Putin wants Russia to be a part of the globalized world but only from an economic perspective, not in a political or social sense. “.. Isolation from the world economy is a recipe for underdevelopment”. (Evans, 2008). He admits that the promulgation of democracy in the world is a part of globalization but he also emphasizes that in the case of Russia, there have to be made certain adaptations because the atmosphere and historical timeline of Russia gives an unprecedented picture of what Russia has been in the past and how and in which way it is possible to intermix global values in the Russian society. He, actually, doesn’t want the demolition of centralization of power in the hands of smaller groups or common people because of certain reservations. He stresses that the existence of a strong center is very necessary for the stability of Russia in the hostile environment of destabilizing forces. He does not see the West or US or the whole world as his enemies if the economic aspect is taken into account, but he shifts his ideas to another side if politics inside of Russia is discussed or criticized openly. He sees Russian people as the light bearers of a strong far past. They have a strong moral character. But they fell to certain disunity in the 90s and that led to the devastation of Russia and pushed it back very badly. He claims that decentralization of power may tend to bring that black era back once again and Russia cannot be able to withstand another crisis this time. He denotes those who want to see the people of Russia instigated against the government as traitors who have sold their loyalties to foreign enemies. He thinks those people have no room in this sacred country and hopes to outcast them with the help of the public. In 2007, while speaking to an election rally of the United Russia party, he spoke, “Those who oppose us need a weak, sick state, a disoriented, divided society, so that behind its back they can get up to their dirty deeds and profit at your and my expense”. (Evans, 2008)
1.10 Putin and Conspiracy Theories:
Conspiracy theories have been a useful tool for politicians, and leaders like Putin to stay in power for the maximum time by using them to alter public opinion against their political competitors. Using America or West-based conspiracy theories or undercover long-term plans to divert the public narrative from domestic problems, leaders like Putin, deliberately play nationalistic cards to ensure their stay for a longer term. As the case was upside-down when America blamed Russia for Election-meddling in 2016. It is not the first time either for U.S. or Russia. In Russia, such theories are spread by the virtue of local and second-class journalists or analytics through public media. Public opinion is directed towards the hidden plans of so-called enemies of Russia and then targeted political opponents are connected to those ideas and hence to the foreign agencies or powers who are always planning to destruct Russia. In this way, authoritarianism is maintained in the countries like Russia. Examples of such cases are Aleksei Navalny (opposition leader) and Golos (the election monitoring NGO in Russia). Both have been accused of fraud and the former has been arrested many times. “When a worker from Novosibirsk in Siberia asked Putin in 2007 if he believed that former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright had suggested splitting Russia into several regions under international control, Putin admitted that, while he never heard it from Albright herself, he believed these ideas do exist in the minds of Western politicians.” (Yablokov, 2019)
1.11 Leadership Qualities
By a brief analysis of Putin’s personality, we come to know that Putin has some great qualities that make him the utmost choice to be a leader.
Responsibility
Decision Taking
Dealing with Facts
Optimism
Resilience
Excellence
Macho Personality Cult
1.12 Timeline of Events
2000: He became the youngest leader after Stalin to rule Russia. In a summit in Moscow, he signed arms control agreements with Clinton, though never observed by either state.
2001: Expulsion of 50 of each other’s diplomats by Russia and the US.
2002: Putin opposes the US policy in Iraq.
2003: Last of the independent TV channels was closed by the government in order to suppress the opposition.
2004: Re-election as the president passed a law to appoint regional governors by the president.
2006: Putin asks Hamas to acknowledge the existence of Israel. Later, he invited them to Moscow.
2007: Putin was named a person of the year by Time magazine.
2008: Two consecutive terms of Putin came to an end. Dmitri Medvedev was elected as the new president. Putin was announced as prime minister soon after the inauguration of the president.
2009: Putin remains in the limelight through his excessive outdoor activities and photo shoots.
2010: Putin is seen on media in the Volga city of Nizhny Novgorod comforting the sufferers of fatal wildfires. “Before winter, all the houses will be standing” was his famous dialogue. (Nikolsky, 2010)
2011: Massive protests are held by the public accusing the government of ballot stuffing and voter fraud in parliamentary elections.
2012: Putin is elected as president for the third time.
2013: Putin writes in the New York Times to appealing the US to avoid the use of force in Syria.
2014: Crimea is annexed and the war on the eastern border of Ukraine takes place. In response, the West imposes sanctions on Moscow, and Putin replies by banning the import of food from European countries.
2015: Putin gives a political life to his ally Bashar Al Assad by intervening in the war in Syria. Russia launches airstrikes, deploys special troops, and supplies food and medical aid to Syrian forces.
2016: The Kremlin is accused of medalling into US presidential elections. Putin was blamed for favoring the Republican candidate Donald Trump. Putin denies the allegations. (History.com, 2019)
2017: Putin and Trump meet on the sideline of the G-20 summit in Germany. Putin announces to expel 755 US diplomats from Russia in response to new sanctions from the West.
2018: Theresa May, British Prime Minister accuses the Russian government of poisoning a former Russian spy in England and gives an ultimatum to Putin government to explain its action. The Kremlin, however, denied the involvement and missed the due date. Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats and in response, the same number of British diplomats was ordered to be expelled. (Simmons, 2018)
1.13 In the Office
1.13.1 Years 2000-2004
On March 26, 2000, he was elected as the President of Russia (he secured 53 percent of the vote). His motto was to eradicate corruption and to establish a free market economy in devastated Russia. Almost 89 percent of Russia’s regions came under control very soon. He divided the 89 federal subjects of the country into 7 districts and appointed his representatives to assist the administration. Putin appointed his representatives in each of the newly created federal districts. He drastically reduced the influence of the so-called oligarchs of the country which included businessmen and media house owners. His term was marked by strong action against the rebels of Chechnya and opposition to the US policies regarding the proliferation of nukes. After a despairing and ruthless economic as well as social failure, Russian people felt a little relieved during the first term of Putin. Living standards were rising once again and people viewed Putin as a new hope for the uplift of Russia that’s why Putin was easily re-elected for the next term as president on March 14, 2004.
1.13.2 Years 2004-2008
His second term began on the 14th of March 2004 when he got 71% of the vote and got re-elected. He introduced National Priority Projects which included plans for public health, education, housing, and agriculture.
1.13.3 PM Years 2008-2012
Putin’s political party, United Russia, gained a one-sided victory in the parliamentary elections in 2007. Due to constitutional barriers, Putin could not be elected as president for the third consecutive time in 2008. Dmitry Medvedev became his successor while Putin was made the prime minister on May 7, 2008. Moreover, Putin accepted the chairmanship of the United Russia party.
1.13.4 Years 2012-2018
On March 4, 2012, Putin was once again elected as president for the third time and he abandoned the chairmanship of the party. His third term is remarkable for some of the events that took place, for example, a crackdown against suspected foreign agents, the tension between the US and Russia regarding matters related to Edward Snowden, the War in Syria, and the crisis in Ukraine.
1.13.5 2018-Present
Putin won the presidential elections held in March 2018 with a decisive majority of popular votes once again showing his popularity among the people. He aims at developing the Russian economy after it has been facing many sanctions from the West. Moreover, he is determined to take strong social measures to make the life of Russians better. Putin has given a clear signal to contest the presidential elections of 2024.