Russian President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of discussion in recent days after approving a military invasion in Ukraine due to conflicting ideologies.
Apparently, his move was informed by Ukraine’s decision to join NATO and the European Union. Putin argues that if Ukraine joins the two bodies, it would become a puppet of the West.
Putin’s move has however been likened to World War 3 even though Russia first invaded the country in 2014 and since then, the relationship between the two countries was strained, however, they have social and cultural ties.
Putin’s Ferocious nature however seems to be something that was influenced by his childhood and not his rise to power.
Early life
The 69-year old was born in Leningrad that is now referred to as St. Petersburg, on October 7, 1952. At the time, the city was still recovering from World War 2 that occurred in 1939-1945.
He is the only surviving child of his parents after, elder brothers Viktor and Albert, who were born in the 1930s died. Albert died when he was still an infant while Viktor succumbed to diphtheria. All that happened during the war and his mother, Maria Ivanovna Shelomova, who was a worker at a factory, almost died of starvation.
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On the other hand, his father, Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, was severely wounded while serving in the regular army in 1942. Before that, he was serving at the soviet navy in the 1930s and the soviet secret police. He was however raised by surrogate parents after his parents gave him up.
Growing up, Putin is said to have gotten into fights with older and bigger children. He however overcame that by studying judo in the Russian martial art sambo. They also lived in a communal apartment with two other families.
EducationÂ
Between 1968-1970, he schooled at Sgoil 281. Putin joined St. Petersburg State University in 1975-1975 where he studied law. He later joined the Academy of Foreign Intelligence between 1984-1985 and finally St. Petersburg Mining University in 1997.
Family
He has managed to keep his family life private since 2014 despite being in the limelight. He was however married to a flight attendant known as Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya. The two got married in July 1983 but divorced in 2014 and that was made public on a Russian Television. It is alleged that Putin was abusive.
“It was a joint decision: we hardly see each other, each of us has our own life,” Putin said
The two were however blessed with two girls namely Maria who was born in 1985 and Katerina Tikhonova in 1986. He however has kept them off the limelight. It is claimed that they attended university under false names. Way before that, the two girls are said to have homeschooled when Putin became the acting president.
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Maria studied biology in college and went to medical school in Moscow, while Katerina majored in Asian Studies.
Other unconfirmed reports also indicate that the Russian president also had a daughter in 2015 with former Russian rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva.
Career
Putin served as the foreign intelligence officer for the KGB, Committee for State Security, for 15 years. In the period he also served six years in Dresden, East Germany.
He is said to have retired from KGB in 1990, and soon afterwards, he became an advisor to Anatoly Sobchak, his lecturer at the law school, who was then the mayor of St Petersburg and by 1994, he had risen to the rank of the first deputy mayor.
Putin then moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined the presidential staff as the deputy to Pavel Borodin, the Kremlin’s Chief Administrator. He rose through ranks and this saw him get appointed as the Director of Federal Security Service (FSB) by the president on July 25, 1998.
On August 9, 1999, Putin was appointed as one of the first three Deputy Prime ministers but later in the day, he was promoted to the acting prime minister. Yeltsin also announced that he wanted Putin to succeed him.
He became the 5th prime minister within a period of 8 months and when the president unexpectedly resigned on December 31, 1999, Putin took over the leadership of the country as acting president.
An election was held in 2000 and he won with about 53% of the votes. In 2004, he was reelected for the second term garnering 71.9% of the total votes cast.
His second term came to an end in 2008 as per the constitution, which did not allow him to serve for more than two consecutive terms. He was replaced by Dmitry Medvedev, but he took over as the Prime minister thus maintaining his political dominance.
During his second term as the prime minister, he was able to achieve two things that is; overcoming the consequences of the world economic crisis and stabilizing Russia’s population between 2008-2011 after a long period of demographic collapse that began in the 1990s.
He was elected for the third term as president in 2012-2018, but there were wide accusations that his party was involved in rigging.
During the third term, Russia invaded Ukrainian territories and took control of some strategic positions in 2014. In 2015, the country intervened in the civil war in Syria while in 2016, the country was accused of interfering in US elections by helping former US president Donald Trump in defeating Hilary Clinton.
Putin won the country’s presidency in 2018, for his fourth term to date. He could serve to 2036 after signing legislation that allows him to vie for two more consecutive term
Wealth and Assets
It is alleged that Putin could be the richest person on earth. It is believed that he could be $200 billion rich. But other reports put his net worth at $70 billion. Therefore his exact net worth remains unknown as well as the location of his billions.
He almost has no paper trail for his assets. According to the 2016 Panama papers report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, most of his assets are hidden under complex financial schemes organized by his confidantes.
Some of the properties have been linked to his family and friends but not to him directly include a $100 million mega yacht and a black sea palace allegedly built for Putin’s personal use.
In his 2018 official income declaration statement, Putin said he owns an 800-square-foot apartment in St. Petersburg, along with two Soviet-era cars and an off-road truck. The Kremlin says his annual income is about $140,000.
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