Vladimir Putin By: Harrison Holmes, Nicholas Stallworth, Coleman Stallworth, Varun Bedi, Maor Niv, Zach Fisher, John Michael Webster, and Azariah Noah

Background Vladimir Putin was born on October 7th, 1962 He was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia He is now 64 years old He was married to Lyudmila Putin from 1983-2014 He has two children Yekaterina and Mariya

Election/Post Election Putin first came into power on Aug 9, 1999 as the Prime Minister, he was appointed by Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin then resigned, making Putin the president. Putin was first elected president in February of 2000, winning with nearly 57% of the vote. Putin’s public image suffered a bit in August of the same year, as the Kursk submarine sunk to bottom of the Barents sea, killing 118 people. The following year, Putin and the Russian government started to oppress independent media outlets. Putin and Bush started to talk in 2001 as well. Both of them wanted to have a beneficial relationship. Russia also pledged to help in its efforts with fighting terrorism.

Russia closes the TVS television channel On June 2003, Putin chose to pull the plug on the last independent news network, as he replaced it with another sports channel. While the reason given was that network was in a financial crisis and was debt-ridden, the sinister and abrupt nature of the shutdown raised a lot of suspicion. This led a lot of critics to allege the government shutdown any outlet for criticism of Putin, as this happened during election time. The state had controlling interests of three of the four major tv networks, and most of the other outlets were either partly controlled by the government or businesses loyal to Putin. This event showcases Putin’s trend to authoritarianism, as he is shutting down his opponents through his power. This has led to big debates about press freedom.

Putin Re-elected March 2004: Putin got re-elected after he finished his first term from 2000- 2004 In Russia re-elections were happening in March Putin was seeking a second 4 year term as president He ran as Independent instead of for United Russia His popularity remained high because of economic stability

Islamic Terrorist Attack September 2004- Islamist fighters seize more than 1,000 people in a school in Beslan, triggering a three-day siege that ends in gunfire. A total of 333 hostages are killed. Half of them are children. Belsan- a city in the North Caucasus Republic The siege began on the morning of September 1st when 32 armed individuals stormed into the school and took 1,000 people hostage The siege lasted 2 days where all the hostages were in the gymnasium After explosions were heard the Russian special forces entered the building The Russian special forces killed everyone except for one which they captured him and convicted him of terrorism in 2006

Chechen Leader Dies, March 2005 Dzhokhar Dudayev First President of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria March 2005: Died at the age of 52, by booby trap Thought to be a political opponent of Putin, reported killed by Russian forces Putin claimed he was undermining Russia by leading separatist movement

Russian Spy dies November 2006: Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, living in London, dies after receiving a fatal dose of a radioactive substance. Alexander Litvinenko was supposed to be the successor of KGB but he fled to England where he opposed the Kremlin He was killed from polonium-210 which is believed was in one of his cup of teas It was believed that he was working for MI6 and he was investigating Spanish links to the Russian Mafia He died 16 days after being poisoned

End of Presidency Putin’s first presidency ended in 2008. He became Prime Minister and would be reelected as President four years later with over 60% of the vote Many critics believe the vote count was illegitimate

US Blacklisting December 2012- Angered by a US bill blacklisting Russian officials in connection with the death in custody of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Moscow bans Americans from adopting Russian children and stops US-funded non-governmental organisations from working in Russia. Magnitsky a lawyer for William Browder was arrested in 2008 He was investigating state corruption He later died in prison a couple years later because of a disease that was left untreated Later Browder lobbied for the US to make a new which forbids Russians who were involved to keep banks accounts in the US With that Russia responded with a ban on Americans from adopting Russian children

Invasion of Ukraine 2014: Russia made incursions into Ukraine. Putin was very adamant on achieving of his goal of restricting Ukraine’s sovereignty. He accomplished this by increasing by Russian military presence in Ukraine. However, he later stated that he aimed to end the conflict in Ukraine peacefully. His continued human rights violations in Ukraine have sparked condemnation from the UN.

2016-2017: Relations with US Tensions heighten between the countries as Trump backs heavier trade sanctions against Russia Putin responds by dismissing over 200 US employees in the US embassy in Russia and degrades the American people by saying they have a “low level of political culture”

His legacy shall live on forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He just can’t keep his shirt on.