Kgb agent vladimir putin biography
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Vladimir Putin: How a KGB agent from Leningrad rose to the top of the Kremlin
From working as a KGB agent in Soviet East Germany to the very heights of the Kremlin, the history of the Russian Federation is in many ways inseparable from that of Vladimir Putin.
As he eyes another term as president in the 2024 elections, Sky News takes a look back at his long reign - and some of the events that threatened his grip on power.
Growing up in the shadow of the Nazi siege of Leningrad
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born in the Soviet City of Leningrad on 7 October 1952.
He had two brothers who died before he was born - his brother Viktor lost his life as Nazi forces laid siege to Leningrad during the Second World War.
Ukraine war latest updates
Later in his life, Mr Putin recounted that his grandfather Spiridon Putin worked as a cook for Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.
Mr Putin grew up in Leningrad (modern-day St Petersburg) where he trained in martial arts a
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Vladimir Putin: From Russia's KGB to a long presidency defined bygd war in Ukraine
Four years later, Chechen rebels took 1,000 hostages, most of them children, at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. When Russian special forces stormed the building, 330 people died. It later emerged that Russia had intelligence of a planned attack but had failed to act.
The first years of the Putin presidency were both bloody and turbulent, but the Russian economy was doing well, buoyed by high oil prices.
He won public support for taking on the billionaire oligarchs who had run rife in Russia in the 1990s. Summoning them to the Kremlin, he said they could keep their money as long as they kept out of politics and backed him.
He acted fast against those who didn't, such as Russia's then-wealthiest man Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was arrested at gunpoint and jailed in Siberia.
Russia's president had something of a honeymoon with the West. He was one of the first foreign leaders to r
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Vladimir Putin
1952-present
Latest News: Vladimir Putin Announces 2024 Russian Presidential Run
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Friday he will seek to remain in the position for a fifth term during Russia’s upcoming elections on March 17, 2024. If re-elected, Putin could remain in power through 2030 because of the six-year term length. “I won’t hide it from you—I had various thoughts about it over time, but now, you’re right, it’s necessary to make a decision,” Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin. “I will run for president of the Russian Federation.”
According to the Associated Press, the 71-year-old Putin, who was first elected president in March 2000, has twice amended the Russian constitution so that he could theoretically remain in power until 2036. He is already the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin.
Who Is Vladimir Putin?
In 1999, Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismissed his prime minister and promoted former KGB officer