Vladimir Putin: “The most powerful man in the world”
2 March 2022: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a Russian politician, and former intelligence officer, was born on 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, the Soviet Union now Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Born in an ordinary middle-class family, his mother being a factory worker and his father being a part of the Soviet Navy, both parents worked as much as they could to support themselves and him. He was often left to fend for himself in the company of other kids in the apartment building and was bullied severely which resulted in having a mindset of being strong enough. So at the age of 12, he started learning sambo( Russian martial art) and judo. Being born in a middle-class family, he lived in ‘Communalka’, also known as community housing, and grew up seeing communism and poverty in his own home.
Later he started seeking a job and became part of “KGB”, a secret service of the USSR. He worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg. He moved to Moscow in 1996 to join the administration of President Boris Yeltsin. He briefly served as director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and secretary of the Security Council.
He became an important asset for his country after carrying out several secret operations during the cold war between USA and USSR. To counter the weak image of Boris Yeltsin’s leadership, he made a dynamic Putin the Prime Minister in 1999. When militants killed 300 Russians in Chechnya of Russia, Putin took strong steps against the militants and defeated them.
After Yeltsin’s resignation, Putin became the acting president for the next few months with 53% of the votes. He signed his first Presidential decree in 1999. Putin was established as a strong leader in Russia continued being in power for the next 8 years. On 14th March 2004, Putin won the presidential elections by 71% votes and was re-elected as President.
On 12 September 2007, Putin dissolved the government at the request of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. It was said that the motive was to give the President a “freehand” in the run-up to the parliamentary election. In 2008, Putin took the Prime Minister’s role and made his junior Dmitri Medvedev President for the next 4 years. He then again became the President in 2012.
A constitutional referendum was held in Russia between 25 June and 1 July 2020. President Vladimir Putin proposed the referendum during his address to the Federal Assembly on 15 January 2020. The referendum was legally referred to as “All Russians Vote”. Putin signed an executive order on 3 July 2020 to officially insert amendments into the Russian Constitution, allowing him to run for two additional six-year terms. These amendments took effect on 4 July 2020. On 22 December 2020, Putin signed a bill giving lifetime prosecutorial immunity to Russian ex-presidents.
President Putin is now 68, completes his ongoing six-year tenure, his fourth as President (his current tenure ends in 2024). He has already run the country either as President or as Prime Minister for more than 20 years. This is the longest period a leader has been in power since Joseph Stalin. Putin has remained in power for so long in spite of the limit of two consecutive terms because he has alternated his roles as President and Prime Minister. Putin’s previous terms will not be counted once the new legislation comes into effect. These will be “zeroed out”, giving him the option of serving two more consecutive terms after the current one ends in 2024.
The legislation Putin has now signed formalizes changes to the Russian Constitution that were endorsed by the people through a referendum held last year. The changes he proposed were approved by over 78% of the vote.
In January 2020, he called for changes to the Constitution, which included the removal of term limits. The Amendments in Russia were passed by the Lower House of Parliament in March last year. People fear to criticize the ways of Putin. The reason for such fear is, in the past critics have either disappeared mysteriously or were killed off.
Today 6000 nuclear weapons are at his disposal which holds the capacity to reach any corner of the world in just 10 minutes. He strictly follows the philosophy of Ivan Ilyin, a Russian philosopher.
Putin has gold reserves worth 9,641 billion rupees, a convoy of luxury cars and private jets, and several intelligence palaces. He has gold worth 9641 billion rupees including 43 planes, 7000 cars, and 15 helicopters, and a luxury private jet plane whose gold toilet costs 50 lakh rupees. Putin has a huge collection of watches worth Rs 5 crore. Putin’s wealth on paper today counts up to 70 billion dollars but according to financial analysts, his wealth counts up to more than 200 billion dollars which makes him richer than Elon Musk.
(Report by Sushree Susmita Nayak)
