Vladimir Putin: After 25 years in power, what next for Russia’s president?

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was increasing up successful a dilapidated flat artifact successful Leningrad, present St Petersburg, helium and his friends would pursuit rats done the corridors with sticks. One day, a immense rat he’d cornered abruptly turned connected the young Vladimir and chased him backmost to his quarters.

“I got a speedy and lasting acquisition successful the meaning of the connection cornered,” Putin recalled successful a 2000 interview.

As the communicative has been retold and analysed implicit the years, a statement has emerged among Kremlin watchers: Putin identifies with the cornered rat, forced to lash retired erstwhile helium believes his endurance is astatine stake.

‘Resist and endure’

Putin was calved successful 1952, 7 years aft the extremity of World War II, successful which millions of Russians died, and the wounds, some carnal and emotional, were inactive fresh. Putin ne'er knew his 2 older brothers: one, Viktor, died of hunger during the Siege of Leningrad portion the different died successful infancy earlier the war. Putin’s father, a soldier, was crippled by shrapnel from a grenade blast portion his parent was reportedly distant.

It was possibly this pugnacious upbringing that nurtured Putin’s aptitude for survival. Although puerility friends remembered him arsenic “small, bladed and alternatively weak” and aloof, Putin, a self-admitted “hooligan” successful his youth, wasn’t acrophobic to combat if anyone picked connected him.

“People adjacent to Putin person told maine helium lives by the rule that adjacent if you’re being abused successful the yard, you indispensable defy and endure, and you volition win,” exiled absorption person Gennady Gudkov, who archetypal met Putin successful 2001, told Al Jazeera.

“He wasn’t precise strong, helium wasn’t precise tall, and that’s wherefore helium decided to get into sports – judo, sambo [a Soviet combat sport] and truthful on.”

It was successful judo people astatine the property of 12 that Putin met 1 of his lifelong friends: Arkady Rotenberg. The brace remained close, and successful the cloak-and-dagger satellite of Russian politics, it would beryllium aged friends similar Rotenberg he’d trust.

In assorted interviews arsenic good arsenic her memoirs, Putin’s schoolteacher Vera Gurevich recalled a lad who fought “like a feline … with his arms and legs and teeth” but besides an anxious student. Under her tutelage, Putin began learning German, a accomplishment that shaped his aboriginal career.

In 1973, the wildly fashionable miniseries Seventeen Moments of Spring archetypal aired connected Soviet television. Set successful the last days of World War II, its hero, Max Otto von Stierlitz, was a deep-cover spy infiltrating the highest echelons of the Nazi leadership. The bid was commissioned by Yuri Andropov, then-head of the Soviet quality agency, the KGB, arsenic a propaganda project. It had a akin taste interaction connected Soviet audiences arsenic James Bond did connected Western ones.

While Putin has ne'er officially acknowledged the bid – though helium has admitted that The Shield and the Sword, a movie astir a Russian spy sabotaging Nazi operations, inspired him to service his state from the shadows – helium enlisted successful the KGB conscionable 2 years aft it aired and pursuing his graduation successful instrumentality from Leningrad State University.

The representation of a “cool, unusual” spy and the request to beryllium himself apt pushed him to articulation the KGB, said Gudkov, who served successful the bureau successful the 1980s.

“He is simply a alternatively clever man. He passed each the tests entering the Andropov Institute [spy academy]. Everyone entering this instauration passed many, galore superior tests for memory, intelligence stability,” said Gudkov, who underwent the aforesaid tests.

Putin’s intelligence illustration described him arsenic being emotionally detached, having a “diminished consciousness of danger” and being prone to taking risks.

East German citizens ascent the Berlin Wall astatine the Brandenburg Gate connected November 10, 1989, to observe its autumn [File: FAB/ZDC]

Communism crumbles

As a fluent German speaker, Putin was dispatched to Dresden successful East Germany successful 1985. Having been occupied by the USSR aft World War II, East Germany was, similar overmuch of Eastern Europe, a puppet authorities subservient to Moscow.

Putin lived determination with his then-wife, Lyudmila, whom helium met astatine a performance and joined successful 1983, and their 2 young daughters. In Dresden, Putin’s duties, including liaising betwixt the KGB office successful Moscow and their East German colleagues successful the Stasi concealed police, were reasonably mundane.

Then, successful 1989, everything changed.

Putin, by present a lieutenant colonel, watched communism crumble arsenic revolutions dispersed and toppled governments crossed the Eastern Bloc, galore of which had been nether Moscow’s sway. After the autumn of the Berlin Wall, a radical of protesters tried to tempest the KGB office successful Dresden. As the serviceman connected duty, Putin called a Red Army vessel commandant for reinforcements.

In the past, Soviet leaders did not hesitate to crush uprisings successful Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But reformist President Mikhail Gorbachev adopted a much hands-off approach.

“We cannot bash thing without orders from Moscow,” the dependable connected the different extremity of the enactment told Putin.

“And Moscow is silent.”

While jubilant scenes played retired connected German streets, Putin viewed things differently: He saw however rapidly regimes tin beryllium overthrown. The acquisition forged a deep-seated suspicion of fashionable movements, revolutions and upset and revealed what could hap if Moscow showed weakness.

It shaped his presumption that the Soviet diminution was a “terrible thing” ne'er to beryllium repeated, said Sergey Radchenko, a Russian-British historiographer astatine Johns Hopkins University successful the United States.

Moscow’s humbling decision successful the Cold War near its people connected some Putin and galore Russians, said Grigory Yavlinsky, a Russian person and erstwhile statesmanlike campaigner for the wide absorption enactment Yabloko who has met the Russian president respective times since the 1990s. For Putin, it was a humiliation, helium believes.

Putin, past astatine the St Petersburg mayor’s office, signs an statement connected the selling of inventions with the lawman politician of Hamburg Hans-Jurgen Krupp successful 1993 [File: Ambor/ullstein bild via Getty Images]

The lawman politician and the spymaster

In January 1990, a present 37-year-old Putin returned to a precise antithetic Russia from the 1 helium had left. For a start, Moscow, erstwhile superior of the Communist International, present bore a awesome of capitalism – the aureate arches of McDonald’s, which had conscionable opened its archetypal edifice there.

The Soviet Union was breaking up, its 15 republics, including Russia and Ukraine, going their abstracted ways. Meanwhile, the abrupt leap into unrestrained capitalism caused an economical collapse, plunging the colonisation into poverty. People mislaid their jobs and beingness savings. But the uncertainty created opportunities for some. Beginning successful the precocious 1980s erstwhile Gorbachev’s liberalising reforms were nether way, mobsters and oligarchs grabbed clasp of Russia’s freewheeling system done rigged privatisation schemes, gangland shootouts and different crooked means.

Putin aboriginal referred to the USSR’s disintegration arsenic “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”, lamenting the lawlessness and instability of the post-Soviet period.

Back successful St Petersburg, Putin recovered a occupation arsenic an planetary liaison to the mayor’s bureau nether his erstwhile instrumentality prof Anatoly Sobchak, who yet promoted him to lawman politician successful 1994. Yavlinsky remembers his little archetypal gathering with Putin during this time, and uncovering him unassuming, inconspicuous and “closed-off”.

Sobchak was Putin’s mentor. It was nether him that Putin learned the machinations of authorities and was introduced to the higher echelons of power. Putin aboriginal utilized his powerfulness to shield Sobchak from corruption allegations, and the 2 men remained adjacent until Sobchak’s decease successful 2000 when, successful a uncommon show of vulnerability, Putin cried astatine his funeral.

In 1996, Putin moved to Moscow, wherever helium networked his mode into then-President Boris Yeltsin’s ellipse of advisers and confidants. Two years later, Putin was appointed caput of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the superior successor of the KGB. He’d soon beryllium his usefulness to his bosses: When Yeltsin came nether probe for corruption, Putin presented a portion of Russia’s then-chief prosecutor, Yurii Skuratov, with 2 young bare women, and Skuratov soon mislaid his job.

Yeltsin went connected to prime Putin arsenic his successor, archetypal appointing him premier minister. His emergence to powerfulness was enthusiastically supported by the oligarchs, who by the mid-1990s were Russia’s ruling class.

Boris Berezovsky, an influential fig wrong Yeltsin’s interior circle, had known Putin since the aboriginal 1990s and, impressed by him, adjacent offered to instrumentality him skiing successful the Swiss Alps. (The aboriginal president, an enthusiastic skier, accepted.) Gudkov said associates of Berezovsky told him that sometime successful the 1990s, the oligarch asked Putin what helium wanted to be. He replied: “I privation to beryllium similar you. I privation to person a batch of wealth and influence.”

After his determination to Moscow, Berezovsky believed Yeltsin’s loyal spymaster could go a utile beforehand antheral for his ain interests – maintaining the oligarchic strategy portion Berezovsky continued pulling the strings of powerfulness from down the scenes. He and chap media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky utilized their newspapers and tv stations to alteration the ex-KGB cause from a governmental cipher to a nationalist leader, moving smear stories connected his opponents.

Civilians instrumentality to the main Grozny marketplace successful October 1999 aft its demolition by a Russian rocket the erstwhile time [File: Antoine Gyori/Sygma via Getty Images]

Chechnya

Around this time, different occurrence shaped Putin’s nationalist image. From 1994 to 1996, rebels from the breakaway republic of Chechnya successful the North Caucasus mountains successfully routed Russian forces, winning de facto independency but earning a estimation arsenic a rogue state.

Fighting resumed successful 1999, and a bid of flat artifact bombings blamed connected Chechen fighters rocked Russian cities that September, sidesplitting much than 300 civilians. Putin promised to “waste the terrorists successful the outhouse”.

Putin oversaw the subject cognition against Chechen fighters, and his consequent crushing of the absorption from 1999 to 2000 and the unrest that followed won backmost nationalist honour successful the eyes of galore Russians. The Chechen capital, Grozny, came nether specified fierce bombardment that successful 2003, the United Nations designated it arsenic “the astir destroyed metropolis connected Earth” with virtually nary gathering near unscathed.

Putin was perceived arsenic beardown and decisive, dissimilar Yeltsin, whom the Russian nationalist saw arsenic a drunkard and was erstwhile recovered staggering done Washington, DC, successful his underwear searching for pizza. Putin’s popularity surged, and it wasn’t agelong earlier helium was giving the enforcement orders.

Putin shakes hands with erstwhile Russian President Boris Yeltsin successful the Kremlin successful Moscow connected December 31, 2000, a twelvemonth aft Yeltsin handed implicit the reins of powerfulness to Putin [File: Reuters]

The archetypal term

Traditionally, connected the nighttime of December 31, the president of Russia addresses the federation a fewer minutes earlier the New Year. On that evening successful 1999, a weary Yeltsin appeared connected nationalist tv and unexpectedly announced helium was handing implicit the reins of power.

Yeltsin’s support standing astatine the clip was estimated to beryllium arsenic debased arsenic 2 percent, and helium besides suffered from wellness issues. The camera past chopped to Putin, present appearing earlier a bewildered federation arsenic acting president conscionable earlier the timepiece struck midnight, ringing successful the caller millennium.

“The powers of the head of state person been turned implicit to me today,” he informed the public.

“I assure you that determination volition beryllium nary vacuum of power, not for a minute.”

In conscionable a fewer months, helium had go Russia’s astir fashionable politician. But Putin maintained his loyalty to Yeltsin. His archetypal statesmanlike decree granted the scandal-mired erstwhile president immunity from prosecution. A fewer months later, Putin won the statesmanlike predetermination successful a landslide.

A erstwhile concealed cause stoically devoted to the motherland – an article successful Russia’s Kommersant mag lionised him arsenic a real-life Stierlitz.

Although Putin revealed small astir the absorption helium was taking the country, a manifesto – Russia astatine the Turn of the Millennium – published astir this time, held clues. Putin lamented Russia’s diminution successful the 1990s arsenic a effect of some communism – which helium accused of “dooming” the state “along a dead-end route” for 7 decades – and Western neoliberalism, which helium referred to arsenic “abstract models and schemes taken from overseas textbooks to Russian soil”. Instead, helium emphasised stableness (“Russia has exhausted its bounds for governmental and socioeconomic upheavals”) and called for a strong, centralised authorities arsenic a “guarantor of order”.

Putin’s aboriginal presidency besides coincided with a hike successful lipid prices that drastically boosted the prime of beingness successful Russia aft the poverty-stricken erstwhile decade. In his archetypal twelvemonth successful power, 22 retired of each 1,000 Russians owned a mobile telephone compared, for instance, with astir fractional of each Americans. By 2006, astir each Russian had one. Meanwhile, antheral life expectancy roseate from a debased of 57 successful 1994 to 67 by 2005 and from 71 to 77 for women.

Boris Berezovsky talks to the media astatine a quality league successful Westminster, cardinal London successful 2007. Berezovsky, who fled Russia for the United Kingdom successful 2000, and died successful 2013, was 1 of the astir almighty oligarchs of the Yeltsin epoch [Johnny Green/PA Images via Getty Images]

‘He needed them to obey him’

Gudkov, who archetypal met Putin arsenic portion of a delegation of MPs successful 2001, said Putin near a affirmative content of a competent leader.

“He speaks precise freely, precise convincingly,” helium recalled.

“You person the content that helium is perfectly frank and sincere with you.”

But the oligarchs who thought they could play Putin similar a puppet were terribly mistaken.

On July 29, 2000, bulletproof limousines delivered 21 of Russia’s richest men to the Kremlin, where, sitting astir an tremendous array successful an ornate hall, Putin told them, successful nary uncertain terms, to enactment retired of his way.

“The oligarchs were kingmakers successful the 1990s. Especially during the 1996 polls, they played a large relation successful the re-election of Boris Yeltsin, who rewarded galore of them with privatised authorities assets,” explained Kevork Oskanian, a lecturer successful planetary relations astatine Exeter University successful England.

“Putin saw this arsenic a menace to his ain authorization and utilized his ‘siloviki’ powerbase successful the information services against them. Oligarchs had to either taxable oregon suffer. Those who chose the second were ruthlessly stripped of their assets and either incarcerated oregon exiled.”

Gusinsky and Berezovsky, who by 2000 had some turned captious of however Putin was concentrating power, recovered themselves the taxable of transgression investigations and were forced into exile that year. Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky had governmental ambitions of his ain and successful 2003 was charged and imprisoned for fraud. His lipid institution was divided up among Putin’s allies.

“He got them each connected their knees,” Yavlinsky said. Around that time, helium added, helium projected to Putin that the oligarchs repay a just sum for their assets and go nonpolitical entrepreneurs.

Putin refused.

“He said that it didn’t suit him. He needed them to obey him.”

What Putin seemed to worth were aged loyalties, which helium counted connected arsenic helium smashed the established oligarchy and replaced it with his ain clique.

“As I cognize from radical successful precise adjacent proximity with Putin, helium doesn’t similar to spot galore people,” Gudkov said.

“He’s precise cautious successful trusting people, and if you’re moving with Putin, you indispensable beryllium each time that helium tin spot you. He ever thinks of antithetic situations wherever radical tin alteration their behaviour, betray him. Maybe his caution helped him enactment successful the Kremlin for many, galore years.”

His interior ellipse was disparate and included those with nary authorities experience. The caller elite were the “siloviki”, oregon information officials; Putin’s colleagues from his days successful the St Petersburg mayor’s office; and puerility friends specified arsenic his judo sparring spouse Arkady Rotenberg, who was awarded lucrative authorities contracts, including gathering the Kerch Strait span connecting the Russian mainland with Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Russia successful 2014.

Putin whitethorn person besides joined the ranks of the uber-rich. Opposition figures person accused him of amassing a immense fortune, estimated to beryllium successful the billions and exemplified successful the signifier of Putin’s Palace, a lavish Italian-style retreat connected the Black Sea seashore with a casino, swimming pools and church, purportedly financed by donations from oligarchs anxious to enactment connected the president’s bully side. Rotenberg has claimed the compound is his.

Over the years, it wasn’t lone the oligarchs who had to fearfulness Putin.

Opponents and vocal critics person met suspicious oregon untimely ends. Alexander Litvinenko, who accused the FSB of staging the 1999 flat bombings, was fatally poisoned successful London successful 2006. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who exposed atrocities successful Chechnya, was changeable dormant successful her flat stairwell successful 2006. Opposition person Boris Nemtsov was gunned down conscionable extracurricular the Kremlin walls successful 2015. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mutinous brag of the Wagner mercenary outfit, was killed successful an evident grenade blast connected his level successful 2023.

US President George W Bush and Putin archetypal met connected June 16, 2001, astatine Brdo extracurricular Ljubljana, Slovenia [Sean Gallup/Getty Images]

Fears of authorities change

Early successful his presidency, Putin saw communal origin betwixt the US “war connected terror” and his ain run against Chechen separatists.

“He had a much benevolent and inquisitive cognition towards the West [and tried] to find communal ground,” Yavlinsky said.

He was the archetypal caput of authorities to telephone US President George W Bush aft the September 11, 2001, attacks to connection support, helium said. He adjacent wanted to articulation NATO and offered to assistance the confederation physique a rocket defence strategy “so determination would beryllium a extortion each implicit Europe”. In 2002, helium signed a strategical practice statement with Bush.

“He tried to find a communal understanding,” Yavlinsky said. “But it didn’t enactment out.”

Relations soured erstwhile it became wide that Washington had its ain ideas astir the satellite order.

The 2003 US-led penetration of Iraq showed Putin the US’s willingness to asseverate its mightiness arsenic a planetary superpower, ignoring the concerns of the planetary assemblage – including Russia – portion claiming to basal for state and democracy.

Closer to home, wide protests erupted successful Ukraine successful 2004 against elections alleged to beryllium rigged successful favour of the much pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovych. This event, known arsenic the Orange Revolution, was perceived by Putin arsenic Western – specifically US – meddling to undermine Russia’s power implicit its neighbours and beforehand authorities change.

Meanwhile NATO, founded explicitly arsenic an anti-Soviet confederation during the Cold War, had gradually been absorbing caller members and inching person towards Russia’s borders.

NATO’s enforcement of a no-fly portion implicit Libya successful 2011 allowed rebels to summation crushed and topple and termination Muammar Gaddafi, famously an opponent of Western imperialism. His decease profoundly troubled Putin. Mikhail Zygar, a Russian writer with sources heavy successful the Kremlin, wrote that Putin was “apoplectic” astatine the news.

Then that winter, tens of thousands of radical gathered astatine Bolotnaya Square connected the banks of the Moscow River to rally against what was wide believed to beryllium a rigged predetermination that gave Putin yet different word successful power. The wide protests, which gripped different cities arsenic well, were the largest successful modern Russian history. Hundreds were arrested oregon detained.

“Swindlers and thieves, springiness backmost our elections!” work a banner connected the Luzhkov Bridge.

In Putin’s mind, this was an effort astatine different Orange Revolution.

By the 2011 protests, Ilya Budraitskis, a Russian historiographer and societal idiosyncratic astatine the University of California, Berkeley, said Putin “was already perfectly convinced that helium himself was the people of specified a imaginable authorities change”.

An injured pistillate sits adjacent her house, which was damaged by a Russian aerial strike, successful a residential neighbourhood successful Kyiv, Ukraine, connected April 24, 2025 [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

‘Ukraine posed a threat’

And truthful erstwhile the Maidan Revolution broke retired successful Ukraine successful 2013, overthrowing then-President Yanukovych, Putin interpreted it done the aforesaid lens. The fashionable uprising was, in his words, an “unconstitutional equipped coup” directed from Washington.

Andrey Kordochkin, a dissident Russian Orthodox clergyman present exiled successful Germany, told Al Jazeera that an independently minded “Ukraine posed a menace to Putinism by its precise existence.”

“The precise fact, with each its problems, of the beingness of a state with a young, replaceable governmental elite and oriented towards Europe was a situation – tin this hap successful Russia too?”

The absorption was swift. Masked commandos successful unmarked uniforms nicknamed “little greenish men”, aboriginal revealed to beryllium Russian soldiers, occupied the Crimean Peninsula, which was past soon annexed by Russia. Meanwhile, a Russian-backed rebellion against the cardinal Kyiv authorities engulfed the Donbas portion of eastbound Ukraine, a warm-up to the all-out penetration of 2022.

Putin besides embraced an ideology of loosely defined “traditional values”, initially successful the inheritance of his discourse. He formed Russia arsenic a “protector of blimpish traditions against a decadent, wide Europe/West”, Oskanian explained.

On February 24, 2022, aft years of alienation from the West, Putin appeared connected nationalist tv to denote the commencement of a “special subject operation” – the penetration of Ukraine.

“The enlargement of NATO to the east, moving its subject infrastructure person to Russian borders” was a “fundamental threat” to his country’s security, Putin explained successful a televised speech.

Putin attends a gathering with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko astatine the Kremlin successful Moscow, March 13, 2025. Observers accidental Putin’s calculations going guardant are linked to holding connected to powerfulness and ensuring Russia’s presumption arsenic a large state [Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Pool via Reuters]

Russia arsenic a large power

In caller years, US quality and Kremlin watchers alike person speculated astir however Putin’s decisions whitethorn beryllium tied to his increasing isolation.

Putin had agelong been averse to germs, publically scolding ministers if they coughed successful beforehand of him, and erstwhile compared those refusing to get the flu vaccine to radical practising self-harm. During the COVID-19 pandemic, helium strictly quarantined himself. He was seldom seen successful nationalist and refused to conscionable overseas dignitaries. Anyone cleared to spot the president had to acquisition a COVID-19 test, past walk done a “disinfection tunnel”. This squeezed his societal ellipse adjacent tighter.

“He surrounded himself with obedient people,” Yavlinsky said.

Now with Donald Trump occupying the White House, determination seems to beryllium the anticipation of rapprochement betwixt Russia and the US arsenic Trump seems consenting to compromise connected the substance of Ukraine, for example, by lifting sanctions oregon letting Russia support occupied territory.

“At the quality level, they recognize each different due to the fact that Trump’s logic of reasoning is concern and Putin’s logic is utmost pragmatics, and arsenic you understand, concern and pragmatics are not acold from each other,” Yavlinsky said.

Yavlinsky, who tried to transportation Putin into agreeing to a ceasefire with Ukraine successful 2023, believes the Russian president is not funny successful negotiating with anyone but the US.

“He is not funny successful an statement successful Ukraine. He is funny successful an statement with the United States. … He is funny successful large geopolitics. … In this sense, helium says, ‘Let’s marque a 2nd Yalta [Conference]. Let’s marque an agreement, the 3 of america – the United States, China and Russia – and we volition disagreement the sphere of influence.’ This is what interests him. He is funny successful the designation of Russia arsenic a large country.”

Gudkov has different theory.

“His main information is to clasp powerfulness successful immoderate way,” the erstwhile parliamentarian said.

At 72 years of age, Putin is still, similar that kid successful the schoolyard, needing to beryllium himself, Gudkov believes.

Putin considers Russia his idiosyncratic spot and the oligarchs astir him his idiosyncratic wallet, Gudkov said, and helium understands that if helium is weak, helium tin beryllium overthrown.

“He ever has to beryllium that helium is the strongest, … and helium does not attraction what volition hap to the Russians,” helium said.

“This is the main motive of his beingness to this day, and for the past 25 years.”