Donald Trump Silver Coin Finland Summit Meeting Peace Helsinki Americana USA Old

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Seller: anddownthewaterfall ✉️ (33,562) 99.8%, Location: Manchester, GB, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 315241708234 Donald Trump Silver Coin Finland Summit Meeting Peace Helsinki Americana USA Old. Donald Trump Finland Summit Talks Coin  This Silver Plated Coin to Commemorate the 2018 Summit Talks  between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin  One side has a image of both men with their flags in the background has the Date of the Summit 16.07.2018 with the words "Summit in Helsinki" Around the edge of the coin has Donald Trump famous phrase  "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics." The back has an image of the building where the meeting took place with the words "USA - Russia Summit, July 16 2018 Helsinki Finland" On both sides at the bottom of the coin is an image of a Dove of Peace The coin is 40mm in diameter and 3mm thick and weights about an ounce Could Trump sort out the Ukraine War? He cant do any worse than Biden - "Let's Go Brandon"! Would make an Excellent Birthday Gift ! Starting at under a Pound...With No Reserve..If your the only bidder you win it for less than ÂŁ1....Grab a Bargain!!!! Sorry about the poor quality photos. They dont do the coin justice which looks a lot better in real life AII have a lot of Trump Coins on Ebay so why not >  Check out my other items !
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Tianjin, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Milan, Shenyang, Dallas, Fort Worth, Boston, Belo Horizonte, Khartoum, Riyadh, Singapore, Washington, Detroit, Barcelona,, Houston, Athens, Berlin, Sydney, Atlanta, Guadalajara, San Francisco, Oakland, Montreal, Monterey, Melbourne, Ankara, Recife, Phoenix/Mesa, Durban, Porto Alegre, Dalian, Jeddah, Seattle, Cape Town, San Diego, Fortaleza, Curitiba, Rome, Naples, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Tel Aviv, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Manchester, San Juan, Katowice, Tashkent, Fukuoka, Baku, Sumqayit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Sapporo, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Taichung, Warsaw, Denver, Cologne, Bonn, Hamburg, Dubai, Pretoria, Vancouver, Beirut, Budapest, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Campinas, Harare, Brasilia, Kuwait, Munich, Portland, Brussels, Vienna, San Jose, Damman , Copenhagen, Brisbane, Riverside, San Bernardino, Cincinnati and Accra Vladimir Putin Владимир Путин Vladimir Putin (2018-03-01) 03 (cropped)(a).jpg Putin in 2018[discuss] President of Russia Incumbent Assumed office 7 May 2012 Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev Mikhail Mishustin Preceded by Dmitry Medvedev In office 7 May 2000 – 7 May 2008 Acting: 31 December 1999 – 7 May 2000 Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov Mikhail Fradkov Viktor Zubkov Preceded by Boris Yeltsin Succeeded by Dmitry Medvedev Prime Minister of Russia In office 8 May 2008 – 7 May 2012 President Dmitry Medvedev First Deputy Sergei Ivanov Viktor Zubkov Igor Shuvalov Preceded by Viktor Zubkov Succeeded by Dmitry Medvedev In office 9 August 1999 – 7 May 2000 President Boris Yeltsin First Deputy Nikolai Aksyonenko Viktor Khristenko Mikhail Kasyanov Preceded by Sergei Stepashin Succeeded by Mikhail Kasyanov Secretary of the Security Council In office 9 March 1999 – 9 August 1999 President Boris Yeltsin Preceded by Nikolay Bordyuzha Succeeded by Sergei Ivanov Director of the Federal Security Service In office 25 July 1998 – 29 March 1999 President Boris Yeltsin Preceded by Nikolay Kovalyov Succeeded by Nikolai Patrushev Additional positions Personal details Born Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin 7 October 1952 (age 69) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union Political party Independent (1991–1995; 2001–2008; 2012–present) Other political affiliations People's Front (2011–present) United Russia[1] (2008–2012) Unity (1999–2001) Our Home – Russia (1995–1999) CPSU (1975–1991) Spouse(s) Lyudmila Shkrebneva ​ ​(m. 1983; div. 2014)​[a] Children At least 2, Maria and Katerina[b] Parent(s) Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin Maria Ivanovna Putina Residence Novo-Ogaryovo, Moscow Alma mater Saint Petersburg State University (LLB) Saint Petersburg Mining Institute (PhD) Awards Order of Honour Signature Website Official website Military service Allegiance Soviet Union Russia Branch/service KGB; FSB; Russian Armed Forces Years of service 1975–1991 1998–1999 2000–present Rank Colonel Supreme Commander-in-Chief Battles/wars Second Chechen War Russo-Georgian War Russo-Ukrainian War Syrian Civil War Владимир Путин (16-09-2021) (cropped).jpg This article is part of a series about Vladimir Putin President of Russia Incumbent Political careerPublic imagePets Policies Domestic policy legislation and programsmilitary reformconstitutional reformnational championspriority projectsstabilization fundForeign policyPutin's Plan Elections Electoral history2000 campaign2004 campaign2012 campaign2018 campaignPutinTeam Premiership First CabinetSecond Cabinet Presidency Inaugurations 1st2nd3rd4thInternational tripsPolitical groupsSpeeches Munich 2007Crimea 2014Valdai 20142020 Address to the Federal AssemblySummits LjubljanaBratislavaHelsinkiGeneva Emblem of the President of Russia.svg Media gallery vte Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin[c] (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is the president of Russia, a position he has filled since 2012, and previously from 1999 until 2008.[7][d] He was also the prime minister from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin is the second-longest current serving European president after Alexander Lukashenko. Putin was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and studied law at Leningrad State University, graduating in 1975. 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, before being appointed as prime minister in August 1999. After the resignation of Yeltsin, Putin became acting president, and less than four months later was elected outright to his first term as president and was reelected in 2004. As he was then constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms as president, Putin served as prime minister again from 2008 to 2012 under Dmitry Medvedev, and returned to the presidency in 2012 in an election marred by allegations of fraud and protests; he was reelected again in 2018. In April 2021, following a referendum, he signed into law constitutional amendments including one that would allow him to run for reelection twice more, potentially extending his presidency to 2036.[8][9] During Putin's first tenure as president, the Russian economy grew for eight consecutive years, with GDP measured by purchasing power increasing by 72%; Russian self-assessed life satisfaction rose significantly.[10] The growth was a result of a fivefold increase in the price of oil and gas, which constitute the majority of Russian exports, recovery from the post-communist depression and financial crises, a rise in foreign investment,[11] and prudent economic and fiscal policies.[12][13] Putin also led Russia to victory in the Second Chechen War. Serving as prime minister under Medvedev, he oversaw large-scale military reform and police reform, as well as Russia's victory in the Russo-Georgian War. During his third term as president, falling oil prices coupled with international sanctions imposed at the beginning of 2014 after Russia launched a military intervention in Ukraine and annexed Crimea led to GDP shrinking by 3.7% in 2015, though the Russian economy rebounded in 2016 with 0.3% GDP growth.[14] During his fourth term as president, the C19 pandemic hit Russia, and Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, leading to further sanctions being imposed against Russia and him personally. Other developments under Putin have included the construction of oil and gas pipelines, the restoration of the satellite navigation system GLONASS, and the building of infrastructure for international events such as the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Under Putin's leadership, Russia has shifted to authoritarianism. Experts do not consider Russia a democracy, citing the jailing and repression of political opponents, the intimidation and suppression of the free press and the lack of free and fair elections.[15][16][17] Russia has scored poorly on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, and Freedom House's Freedom in the World index. Early life Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia),[18][19] the youngest of three children of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin (1911–1999) and Maria Ivanovna Putina (nĂŠe Shelomova; 1911–1998). Spiridon Putin, Vladimir Putin's grandfather, was a personal cook to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.[20][21] Putin's birth was preceded by the deaths of two brothers, Viktor and Albert, born in the mid-1930s. Albert died in infancy and Viktor died of diphtheria during the Siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany's forces in World War II.[22] Putin's mother was a factory worker and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy, serving in the submarine fleet in the early 1930s. Early in World War II, his father served in the destruction battalion of the NKVD.[23][24][25] Later, he was transferred to the regular army and was severely wounded in 1942.[26] Putin's maternal grandmother was killed by the German occupiers of Tver region in 1941, and his maternal uncles disappeared on the Eastern Front during World War II.[27] On 1 September 1960, Putin started at School No. 193 at Baskov Lane, near his home. He was one of a few in the class of approximately 45 pupils who were not yet members of the Young Pioneer organization. At age 12, he began to practise sambo and judo.[28] In his free time he enjoyed reading on Marx, Engels and Lenin.[29] Putin studied German at Saint Petersburg High School 281 and speaks German as a second language.[30] Putin studied law at the Leningrad State University named after Andrei Zhdanov (now Saint Petersburg State University) in 1970 and graduated in 1975.[31] His thesis was on "The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law".[32] While there, he was required to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and remained a member until it ceased to exist (it was outlawed in August 1991).[33] Putin met Anatoly Sobchak, an assistant professor who taught business law,[e] and later became the co-author of the Russian constitution and of the corruption schemes persecuted in France. Putin would be influential in Sobchak's career in Saint Petersburg. Sobchak would be influential in Putin's career in Moscow.[34] KGB career In 1975, Putin joined the KGB and trained at the 401st KGB school in Okhta, Leningrad.[18][35] After training, he worked in the Second Chief Directorate (counter-intelligence), before he was transferred to the First Chief Directorate, where he monitored foreigners and consular officials in Leningrad.[18][36][37] In September 1984, Putin was sent to Moscow for further training at the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute.[38][39][40] From 1985 to 1990, he served in Dresden, East Germany,[41] using a cover identity as a translator.[42] This period in his career is mostly unclear. Putin in the KGB, c. 1980 Masha Gessen, a Russian-American who has authored a biography about Putin, claims "Putin and his colleagues were reduced mainly to collecting press clippings, thus contributing to the mountains of useless information produced by the KGB".[42] Putin's work was also downplayed by former Stasi spy chief Markus Wolf and Putin's former KGB colleague Vladimir Usoltsev. According to journalist Catherine Belton, this downplaying was actually cover for Putin's involvement in KGB coordination and support for the terrorist Red Army Faction, whose members were frequently hiding in East Germany with support of the Stasi, and Dresden was preferred as a "marginal" town with low presence of Western intelligence services.[43] According to an anonymous source, a former RAF member, at one of these meetings in Dresden the militants presented Putin with a list of weapons that were later delivered to the RAF in West Germany. Klaus Zuchold, who claimed to be recruited by Putin, said the latter also handled a neo-nazi Rainer Sonntag, and attempted to recruit an author of a study on poisons.[43] Putin also reportedly met Germans to be recruited for wireless communications affairs together with an interpreter. He was involved in wireless communications technologies in South-East Asia due to trips of German engineers, recruited by him, there and to the West.[37] According to Putin's official biography, during the fall of the Berlin Wall that began on 9 November 1989, he saved the files of the Soviet Cultural Center (House of Friendship) and of the KGB villa in Dresden for the official authorities of the would-be united Germany to prevent demonstrators, including KGB and Stasi agents, from obtaining and destroying them. He then supposedly burnt only the KGB files, in a few hours, but saved the archives of the Soviet Cultural Center for the German authorities. Nothing is told about the selection criteria during this burning; for example, concerning Stasi files or about files of other agencies of the German Democratic Republic or of the USSR. He explained that many documents were left to Germany only because the furnace burst. But many documents of the KGB villa were sent to Moscow.[44] After the collapse of the Communist East German government, Putin was to resign from active KGB service because of suspicions aroused regarding his loyalty during demonstrations in Dresden and earlier, though the KGB and the Soviet Red Army still operated in eastern Germany, and he returned to Leningrad in early 1990 as a member of the "active reserves", where he worked for about three months with the International Affairs section of Leningrad State University, reporting to Vice-Rector Yuriy Molchanov,[37] while working on his doctoral dissertation. There, he looked for new KGB recruits, watched the student body, and renewed his friendship with his former professor, Anatoly Sobchak, soon to be the Mayor of Leningrad.[45] Putin claims that he resigned with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on 20 August 1991,[45] on the second day of the 1991 Soviet coup d'ĂŠtat attempt against the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.[46] Putin said: "As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on", although he also noted that the choice was hard because he had spent the best part of his life with "the organs".[47] In 1999, Putin described communism as "a blind alley, far away from the mainstream of civilization".[48] Political career Main articles: Political career of Vladimir Putin and Russia under Vladimir Putin 1990–1996: Saint Petersburg administration Putin, Lyudmila Narusova and Ksenia Sobchak at the funeral of Putin's former mentor[49] Anatoly Sobchak, Mayor of Saint Petersburg (1991–1996). In May 1990, Putin was appointed as an advisor on international affairs to the Mayor of Leningrad Anatoly Sobchak. In a 2017 interview with Oliver Stone, Putin said that he resigned from the KGB in 1991, following the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, as he did not agree with what had happened and did not want to be part of the intelligence in the new administration.[50] According to Putin's statements in 2018 and 2021, he may have worked as a private taxi driver to earn extra money, or considered such a job.[51][52] On 28 June 1991, he became head of the Committee for External Relations of the Mayor's Office, with responsibility for promoting international relations and foreign investments[53] and registering business ventures. Within a year, Putin was investigated by the city legislative council led by Marina Salye. It was concluded that he had understated prices and permitted the export of metals valued at $93,000,000 in exchange for foreign food aid that never arrived.[54][31] Despite the investigators' recommendation that Putin be fired, Putin remained head of the Committee for External Relations until 1996.[55][56] From 1994 to 1996, he held several other political and governmental positions in Saint Petersburg.[57] In March 1994, Putin was appointed as First Deputy Chairman of the Government of Saint Petersburg. In May 1995, he organized the Saint Petersburg branch of the pro-government Our Home – Russia political party, the liberal party of power founded by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. In 1995, he managed the legislative election campaign for that party, and from 1995 through June 1997, he was the leader of its Saint Petersburg branch.[57] 1996–1999: Early Moscow career In June 1996, Sobchak lost his bid for re-election in Saint Petersburg, and Putin, who had led his election campaign, resigned from his positions in the city administration. He moved to Moscow and was appointed as Deputy Chief of the Presidential Property Management Department headed by Pavel Borodin. He occupied this position until March 1997. He was responsible for the foreign property of the state and organized the transfer of the former assets of the Soviet Union and Communist Party to the Russian Federation.[34] Putin as FSB director, 1998 On 26 March 1997, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Putin deputy chief of the Presidential Staff, a post which he retained until May 1998, and chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department (until June 1998). His predecessor in this position was Alexei Kudrin and his successor was Nikolai Patrushev, both future prominent politicians and Putin's associates.[34] On 27 June 1997, at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, guided by rector Vladimir Litvinenko, Putin defended his Candidate of Science dissertation in economics, titled The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations.[58] This exemplified the custom in Russia whereby a young rising official wrote a scholarly work in mid-career.[59] When Putin later became president, the dissertation became a target of plagiarism accusations by fellows at the Brookings Institution after it was discovered that 15 pages were copied from an American textbook.[60] Putin responded that the dissertation was referenced,[61][62] the Brookings fellows asserted that it constituted plagiarism albeit perhaps unintentional.[61] The dissertation committee refuted the accusations.[62][63] On 25 May 1998, Putin was appointed First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff for the regions, in succession to Viktoriya Mitina; and, on 15 July, he was appointed head of the commission for the preparation of agreements on the delimitation of the power of the regions and head of the federal center attached to the president, replacing Sergey Shakhray. After Putin's appointment, the commission completed no such agreements, although during Shakhray's term as the head of the Commission 46 such agreements had been signed.[64] Later, after becoming president, Putin cancelled all 46 agreements.[34] On 25 July 1998, Yeltsin appointed Putin Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the primary intelligence and security organization of the Russian Federation and the successor to the KGB.[65] 1999: First premiership Main article: Vladimir Putin's First Cabinet Putin with President Boris Yeltsin on 31 December 1999, when Yeltsin announced his resignation On 9 August 1999, Putin was appointed one of three First Deputy Prime Ministers, and later on that day, was appointed acting Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation by President Yeltsin.[66] Yeltsin also announced that he wanted to see Putin as his successor. Later on that same day, Putin agreed to run for the presidency.[67] On 16 August, the State Duma approved his appointment as Prime Minister with 233 votes in favor (vs. 84 against, 17 abstained),[68] while a simple majority of 226 was required, making him Russia's fifth PM in fewer than eighteen months. On his appointment, few expected Putin, virtually unknown to the general public, to last any longer than his predecessors. He was initially regarded as a Yeltsin loyalist; like other prime ministers of Boris Yeltsin, Putin did not choose ministers himself, his cabinet was determined by the presidential administration.[69] Yeltsin's main opponents and would-be successors were already campaigning to replace the ailing president, and they fought hard to prevent Putin's emergence as a potential successor. Following the Russian apartment bombings and the invasion of Dagestan by mujahideens, including the former KGB agents, based in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Putin's law-and-order image and unrelenting approach to the Second Chechen War soon combined to raise his popularity and allowed him to overtake his rivals. While not formally associated with any party, Putin pledged his support to the newly formed Unity Party,[70] which won the second largest percentage of the popular vote (23.3%) in the December 1999 Duma elections, and in turn supported Putin. 1999–2000: Acting presidency Vladimir Putin as acting president on 31 December 1999 On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and, according to the Constitution of Russia, Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation. On assuming this role, Putin went on a previously scheduled visit to Russian troops in Chechnya.[71] The first Presidential Decree that Putin signed, on 31 December 1999, was titled "On guarantees for the former president of the Russian Federation and the members of his family".[72][73] This ensured that "corruption charges against the outgoing President and his relatives" would not be pursued.[74] This was most notably targeted at the Mabetex bribery case in which Yeltsin's family members were involved. On 30 August 2000, a criminal investigation (number 18/238278-95) in which Putin himself,[75][76] as a member of the Saint Petersburg city government, was one of the suspects was dropped. On 30 December 2000, yet another case against the prosecutor general was dropped "for lack of evidence", despite thousands of documents having been forwarded by Swiss prosecutors.[77] On 12 February 2001, Putin signed a similar federal law which replaced the decree of 1999. A case regarding Putin's alleged corruption in metal exports from 1992 was brought back by Marina Salye, but she was silenced and forced to leave Saint Petersburg.[78] While his opponents had been preparing for an election in June 2000, Yeltsin's resignation resulted in the presidential elections being held within three months, on 26 March 2000; Putin won in the first round with 53% of the vote.[79][80] 2000–2004: First presidential term Putin taking the presidential oath beside Boris Yeltsin, May 2000 The inauguration of President Putin occurred on 7 May 2000. Putin appointed the Minister of Finance, Mikhail Kasyanov, as the Prime Minister. Putin with Tom Brokaw before an interview on 2 June 2000 The first major challenge to Putin's popularity came in August 2000, when he was criticized for the alleged mishandling of the Kursk submarine disaster.[81] That criticism was largely because it took several days for Putin to return from vacation, and several more before he visited the scene.[81] Between 2000 and 2004, Putin set about the reconstruction of the impoverished condition of the country, apparently winning a power-struggle with the Russian oligarchs, reaching a 'grand bargain' with them. This bargain allowed the oligarchs to maintain most of their powers, in exchange for their explicit support for—and alignment with—Putin's government.[82][83] The Moscow theater hostage crisis occurred in October 2002. Many in the Russian press and in the international media warned that the deaths of 130 hostages in the special forces' rescue operation during the crisis would severely damage President Putin's popularity. However, shortly after the siege had ended, the Russian president enjoyed record public approval ratings—83% of Russians declared themselves satisfied with Putin and his handling of the siege.[84] In 2003, a referendum was held in Chechnya, adopting a new constitution which declares that the Republic of Chechnya is a part of Russia; on the other hand, the region did acquire autonomy.[85] Chechnya has been gradually stabilized with the establishment of the Parliamentary elections and a Regional Government.[86][87] Throughout the Second Chechen War, Russia severely disabled the Chechen rebel movement; however, sporadic attacks by rebels continued to occur throughout the northern Caucasus.[88] 2004–2008: Second presidential term Putin with Junichiro Koizumi, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard SchrĂśder, Silvio Berlusconi, George W. Bush and other state leaders in Moscow during the Victory Day parade, 9 May 2005.[89] On 14 March 2004, Putin was elected to the presidency for a second term, receiving 71% of the vote.[90] The Beslan school hostage crisis took place on 1–3 September 2004; more than 330 people died, including 186 children.[91] The near 10-year period prior to the rise of Putin after the dissolution of Soviet rule was a time of upheaval in Russia.[92] In a 2005 Kremlin speech, Putin characterized the collapse of the Soviet Union as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the Twentieth Century."[93] Putin elaborated, "Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself."[94] The country's cradle-to-grave social safety net was gone and life expectancy declined in the period preceding Putin's rule.[95] In 2005, the National Priority Projects were launched to improve Russia's health care, education, housing, and agriculture.[96][97] The continued criminal prosecution of Russia's then richest man, President of Yukos oil and gas company Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for fraud and tax evasion was seen by the international press as a retaliation for Khodorkovsky's donations to both liberal and communist opponents of the Kremlin.[98] Khodorkovsky was arrested, Yukos was bankrupted, and the company's assets were auctioned at below-market value, with the largest share acquired by the state company Rosneft.[99] The fate of Yukos was seen as a sign of a broader shift of Russia towards a system of state capitalism.[100][101] This was underscored in July 2014, when shareholders of Yukos were awarded $50 billion in compensation by the Permanent Arbitration Court in The Hague.[102] On 7 October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who exposed corruption in the Russian army and its conduct in Chechnya, was shot in the lobby of her apartment building, on Putin's birthday. The death of Politkovskaya triggered international criticism, with accusations that Putin had failed to protect the country's new independent media.[103][104] Putin himself said that her death caused the government more problems than her writings.[105] Putin, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Lyudmila Putina at the state funeral of Boris Yeltsin in Moscow, April 2007 In 2007, "Dissenters' Marches" were organized by the opposition group The Other Russia,[106] led by former chess champion Garry Kasparov and national-Bolshevist leader Eduard Limonov. Following prior warnings, demonstrations in several Russian cities were met by police action, which included interfering with the travel of the protesters and the arrests of as many as 150 people who attempted to break through police lines.[107] On 12 September 2007, Putin dissolved the government upon the request of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Fradkov commented that it was to give the President a "free hand" in the run-up to the parliamentary election. Viktor Zubkov was appointed the new prime minister.[108] In December 2007, United Russia won 64.24% of the popular vote in their run for State Duma according to election preliminary results.[109] United Russia's victory in the December 2007 elections was seen by many as an indication of strong popular support of the then Russian leadership and its policies.[110][111] 2008–2012: Second premiership Main article: Vladimir Putin's Second Cabinet Putin was barred from a third consecutive term by the Constitution. First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was elected his successor. In a power-switching operation on 8 May 2008, only a day after handing the presidency to Medvedev, Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia, maintaining his political dominance.[112] Putin with Dmitry Medvedev, March 2008 Putin has said that overcoming the consequences of the world economic crisis was one of the two main achievements of his second Premiership.[97] The other was stabilizing the size of Russia's population between 2008 and 2011 following a long period of demographic collapse that began in the 1990s.[97] At the United Russia Congress in Moscow on 24 September 2011, Medvedev officially proposed that Putin stand for the Presidency in 2012, an offer Putin accepted. Given United Russia's near-total dominance of Russian politics, many observers believed that Putin was assured of a third term. The move was expected to see Medvedev stand on the United Russia ticket in the parliamentary elections in December, with a goal of becoming Prime Minister at the end of his presidential term.[113] After the parliamentary elections on 4 December 2011, tens of thousands of Russians engaged in protests against alleged electoral fraud, the largest protests in Putin's time. Protesters criticized Putin and United Russia and demanded annulment of the election results.[114] Those protests sparked the fear of a colour revolution in society.[115] Putin allegedly organized a number of paramilitary groups loyal to himself and to the United Russia party in the period between 2005 and 2012.[116] 2012–2018: Third presidential term On 24 September 2011, while speaking at the United Russia party congress, Medvedev announced that he would recommend the party nominate Putin as its presidential candidate. He also revealed that the two men had long ago cut a deal to allow Putin to run for president in 2012.[117] This switch was termed by many in the media as "Rokirovka", the Russian term for the chess move "castling".[118] On 4 March 2012, Putin won the 2012 Russian presidential elections in the first round, with 63.6% of the vote, despite widespread accusations of vote-rigging.[119][120][121] Opposition groups accused Putin and the United Russia party of fraud.[122][123] While efforts to make the elections transparent were publicized, including the usage of webcams in polling stations, the vote was criticized by the Russian opposition and by international observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe for procedural irregularities.[124] Anti-Putin protests took place during and directly after the presidential campaign. The most notorious protest was the Pussy Riot performance on 21 February, and subsequent trial.[125] An estimated 8,000–20,000 protesters gathered in Moscow on 6 May,[126][127] when eighty people were injured in confrontations with police,[128] and 450 were arrested, with another 120 arrests taking place the following day.[129] A counter-protest of Putin supporters occurred which culminated in a gathering of an estimated 130,000 supporters at the Luzhniki Stadium, Russia's largest stadium. Some of the attendees stated that they had been paid to come, were forced to come by their employers, or were misled into believing that they were going to attend a folk festival instead.[130][131][132][133] The rally is considered to be the largest in support of Putin to date.[134] Putin's presidency was inaugurated in the Kremlin on 7 May 2012.[135] On his first day as president, Putin issued 14 Presidential decrees, which are sometimes called the "May Decrees" by the media, including a lengthy one stating wide-ranging goals for the Russian economy. Other decrees concerned education, housing, skilled labor training, relations with the European Union, the defense industry, inter-ethnic relations, and other policy areas dealt with in Putin's program articles issued during the presidential campaign.[136] In 2012 and 2013, Putin and the United Russia party backed stricter legislation against the LGBT community, in Saint Petersburg, Arkhangelsk and Novosibirsk; a law called the Russian gay propaganda law, that is against "homosexual propaganda" (which prohibits such symbols as the rainbow flag as well as published works containing homosexual content) was adopted by the State Duma in June 2013.[137][138][139][140] Responding to international concerns about Russia's legislation, Putin asked critics to note that the law was a "ban on the propaganda of pedophilia and homosexuality" and he stated that homosexual visitors to the 2014 Winter Olympics should "leave the children in peace" but denied there was any "professional, career or social discrimination" against homosexuals in Russia.[141] In June 2013, Putin attended a televised rally of the All-Russia People's Front where he was elected head of the movement,[142] which was set up in 2011.[143] According to journalist Steve Rosenberg, the movement is intended to "reconnect the Kremlin to the Russian people" and one day, if necessary, replace the increasingly unpopular United Russia party that currently backs Putin.[144] Russo-Ukrainian conflict Main articles: Russia–Ukraine relations, Russo-Ukrainian War, and War in Donbas Putin in talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande, 17 October 2014 In 2014, Russia made several military incursions into Ukrainian territory. After the Euromaidan protests and the fall of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Russian soldiers without insignias took control of strategic positions and infrastructure within the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Russia then annexed the Republic of Crimea and City of Sevastopol after a referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, according to official results.[145][146][147] Subsequently, demonstrations against Ukrainian Rada legislative actions by pro-Russian groups in the Donbas area of Ukraine escalated into an armed conflict between the Ukrainian government and the Russia-backed separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. In August Russian military vehicles crossed the border in several locations of Donetsk Oblast.[148][149][150][151] The incursion by the Russian military was seen by Ukrainian authorities as responsible for the defeat of Ukrainian forces in early September.[152][153] In November 2014, the Ukrainian military reported intensive movement of troops and equipment from Russia into the separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.[154] The Associated Press reported 80 unmarked military vehicles on the move in rebel-controlled areas.[155] An OSCE Special Monitoring Mission observed convoys of heavy weapons and tanks in DPR-controlled territory without insignia.[156] OSCE monitors further stated that they observed vehicles transporting ammunition and soldiers' dead bodies crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border under the guise of humanitarian-aid convoys.[157] As of early August 2015, the OSCE observed over 21 such vehicles marked with the Russian military code for soldiers killed in action.[158] According to The Moscow Times, Russia has tried to intimidate and silence human-rights workers discussing Russian soldiers' deaths in the conflict.[159] The OSCE repeatedly reported that its observers were denied access to the areas controlled by "combined Russian-separatist forces".[160] The majority of members of the international community and organizations such as Amnesty International have condemned Russia for its actions in post-revolutionary Ukraine, accusing it of breaking international law and of violating Ukrainian sovereignty. Many countries implemented economic sanctions against Russia, Russian individuals or companies – to which Russia responded in kind. In October 2015, The Washington Post reported that Russia had redeployed some of its elite units from Ukraine to Syria in recent weeks to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.[161] In December 2015, Russian Federation President Putin admitted that Russian military intelligence officers were operating in Ukraine.[162] According to academic Andrei Tsygankov, many[163][164] members of the international community assumed that Putin's annexation of Crimea had initiated a completely new kind of Russian foreign policy.[165] They took the annexation of Crimea to mean that his foreign policy had shifted "from state-driven foreign policy" to taking an offensive stance to recreate the Soviet Union.[165] He also says, that this policy shift can be understood as Putin trying to defend nations in Russia's sphere of influence from "encroaching western power". While the act to annex the Crimea was bold and drastic, his "new" foreign policy may have more similarities to his older policies.[165] Intervention in Syria Main article: Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war See also: Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war Putin meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in New York City to discuss Syria and ISIL, 29 September 2015 On 30 September 2015, President Putin authorized Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war, following a formal request by the Syrian government for military help against rebel and jihadist groups.[166] The Russian military activities consisted of air strikes, cruise missile strikes and the use of front line advisors and Russian special forces against militant groups opposed to the Syrian government, including the Syrian opposition, as well as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in the Levant), Tahrir al-Sham, Ahrar al-Sham and the Army of Conquest.[167][168] After Putin's announcement on 14 March 2016 that the mission he had set for the Russian military in Syria had been "largely accomplished" and ordered the withdrawal of the "main part" of the Russian forces from Syria,[169] Russian forces deployed in Syria continued to actively operate in support of the Syrian government.[170] Russia's interference in the 2016 US election See also: Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and Russia–United States relations In January 2017, a U.S. intelligence community assessment expressed high confidence that Putin personally ordered an influence campaign, initially to denigrate Hillary Clinton and to harm her electoral chances and potential presidency, then later developing "a clear preference" for Donald Trump.[171][172] Both Trump[173][174] and Putin have consistently denied any Russian interference in the U.S. election.[175][176][177][178][179][180] However, Putin later stated that interference was "theoretically possible" and could have been perpetrated by "patriotically minded" Russian hackers,[181] and on another occasion claimed "not even Russians, but Ukrainians, Tatars or Jews, but with Russian citizenship" might have been responsible.[182] The New York Times reported in July 2018 that the CIA had long nurtured a Russian source who eventually rose to a position close to Putin, allowing the source to pass key information in 2016 about Putin's direct involvement.[183] Putin continued similar attempts in the 2020 U.S. election.[184] 2018–present: Fourth presidential term See also: Vladimir Putin 2018 presidential campaign Putin and the newly appointed Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin meeting with members of Mishustin's Cabinet, 21 January 2020 Putin won the 2018 presidential election with more than 76% of the vote.[185] His fourth term began on 7 May 2018[186] and will last until 2024.[187] On the same day, Putin invited Dmitry Medvedev to form a new government.[188] On 15 May 2018, Putin took part in the opening of the movement along the highway section of the Crimean bridge.[189] On 18 May 2018, Putin signed decrees on the composition of the new Government.[190] On 25 May 2018, Putin announced that he would not run for president in 2024, justifying this in compliance with the Russian Constitution.[191] On 14 June 2018, Putin opened the 21st FIFA World Cup, which took place in Russia for the first time. In September 2019, Putin's administration interfered with the results of Russia's nationwide regional elections and manipulated it by eliminating all candidates in the opposition. The event that was aimed at contributing to the ruling party, United Russia's victory, also contributed to inciting mass protests for democracy, leading to large-scale arrests and cases of police brutality.[192] On 15 January 2020, Dmitry Medvedev and his entire government resigned after Vladimir Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly. Putin suggested major constitutional amendments that could extend his political power after presidency.[193][194] At the same time, on behalf of Putin, he continued to exercise his powers until the formation of a new government.[195] The president suggested that Medvedev take the newly created post of Deputy Chairman of the Security Council.[196] On the same day, Putin nominated Mikhail Mishustin, head of the country's Federal Tax Service for the post of Prime Minister. The next day, he was confirmed by the State Duma to the post[197][198] and appointed Prime Minister by Putin's decree.[199] This was the first time ever that a PM was confirmed without any votes against. On 21 January 2020, Mishustin presented to Vladimir Putin a draft structure of his Cabinet. On the same day, the President signed a decree on the structure of the Cabinet and appointed the proposed Ministers.[200][201][202] He added that the next week would be a nationwide paid holiday and urged Russians to stay at home.[209][210] Putin also announced a list of measures of social protection, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, and changes in fiscal policy.[211] Putin announced the following measures for microenterprises, small- and medium-sized businesses: deferring tax payments (except Russia's value-added tax) for the next six months, cutting the size of social security contributions in half, deferring social security contributions, deferring loan repayments for the next six months, a six-month moratorium on fines, debt collection, and creditors' applications for bankruptcy of debtor enterprises.[212][213] On 2 April 2020, Putin again issued an address in which he announced prolongation of the non-working time until 30 April.[214] Putin likened Russia's fight against C19 to Russia's battles with invading Pecheneg and Cuman steppe nomads in the 10th and 11th centuries.[215] In a 24 to 27 April Levada poll, 48% of Russian respondents said that they disapproved of Putin's handling of the  pandemic,[216] and his strict isolation and lack of leadership during the crisis was widely commented as sign of losing his "strongman" image.[217][218] Putin's First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko (left) is in charge of Russia's domestic politics.[219] In June 2021, Putin said he was fully vaccinated against the disease with the Sputnik V vaccine, emphasising that while vaccinations should be voluntary, making them mandatory in some professions would slow down the spread of CO19.[220] In September, Putin entered self-isolation after people in his inner circle tested positive for the disease.[221] Constitutional referendum and amendments Main article: 2020 Russian constitutional referendum 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.[222] Since 11 July, protests have been held in the Khabarovsk Krai in Russia's Far East in support of arrested regional governor Sergei Furgal.[223] The 2020 Khabarovsk Krai protests have become increasingly anti-Putin.[224][225] A July 2020 Levada poll found that 45% of surveyed Russians supported the protests.[226] On 22 December 2020, Putin signed a bill giving lifetime prosecutorial immunity to Russian ex-presidents.[227][228] 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and invasion Main articles: 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Putin holds a video call with U.S. President Joe Biden on 7 December 2021 In September 2021, Ukraine conducted military exercises with NATO forces.[229] The Kremlin warned that NATO expanding military infrastructure in Ukraine would cross "red lines" for Putin.[230][231] Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied allegations that Russia was preparing for a possible invasion of Ukraine.[232] On 30 November 2021, Putin stated that an expansion of NATO's presence in Ukraine, especially the deployment of any long-range missiles capable of striking Russian cities or missile defence systems similar to those in Romania and Poland, would be a "red line" issue for the Kremlin.[233][234][235] Putin asked President Joe Biden for legal guarantees that NATO wouldn't expand eastward or put "weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory."[236] The U.S. and NATO have rejected Putin's demands.[237][238] The Kremlin repeatedly denied that it had any plans to invade Ukraine.[239][240][241] Putin dismissed such fears as "alarmist".[242] In December 2021, a Levada Center poll found that about 50% of Russians believed the U.S. and NATO are to blame for the Russo-Ukrainian crisis, while 16% blamed Ukraine and just 4% blamed Russia.[243][244] However, on 7 February 2022, retired Russian Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, who is active in politics as the chairman of the All-Russian Officers Assembly, publicly called for Putin to resign over threats of a "criminal" invasion of Ukraine.[245][246] In February 2022, Putin warned that Ukraine's accession to NATO could embolden Ukraine to reclaim control over Russian-annexed Crimea or areas ruled by pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, saying "Imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and a military operation [to regain Crimea] begins. What – are we going to fight with NATO? Has anyone thought about this?"[247] On 7 February 2022, Putin said at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron that "A number of [Macron's] ideas, proposals ... are possible as a basis for further steps. We will do everything to find compromises that suit everyone."[248] Putin promised not to carry out new military initiatives near Ukraine.[249] On 15 February 2022, the Russian parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, backed a resolution calling for diplomatic recognition of two self-proclaimed separatist republics in Donbas.[250] On 21 February, Putin signed a decree recognizing the separatist republics as independent states.[251] On 24 February, Putin in a televised address announced a "special military operation" in Ukraine,[252] launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[253] British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested Putin could face war crimes charges, and said that the UK and its allies are working to set up a "particular international war crimes tribunal for those involved in war crimes in the Ukraine theatre."[254] As a result of the invasion, further sanctions were introduced against Russia, including against Putin personally.[255][256] In response to the sanctions, Putin put the Strategic Rocket Forces nuclear deterrence units on high alert. Domestic policies Main article: Domestic policy of Vladimir Putin Putin's domestic policies, particularly early in his first presidency, were aimed at creating a vertical power structure. On 13 May 2000, he issued a decree organizing the 89 federal subjects of Russia into seven administrative federal districts and appointed a presidential envoy responsible for each of those districts (whose official title is Plenipotentiary Representative).[257] In May 2000, Putin introduced seven federal districts for administrative purposes. In January 2010, the 8th North Caucasus Federal District (shown here in purple) was split from the Southern Federal District. In March 2014, the new 9th Crimean Federal District was formed after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. In July 2016 it was incorporated into the Southern Federal District. According to Stephen White, under the presidency of Putin, Russia made it clear that it had no intention of establishing a "second edition" of the American or British political system, but rather a system that was closer to Russia's own traditions and circumstances.[258] Some commentators have described Putin's administration as a "sovereign democracy".[259][260][261] According to the proponents of that description (primarily Vladislav Surkov), the government's actions and policies ought above all to enjoy popular support within Russia itself and not be directed or influenced from outside the country.[262] The practice of the system is, however, characterized by Swedish economist Anders Åslund:[263] After Putin resumed the presidency in 2012, his rule is best described as "manual management" as the Russians like to put it. Putin does whatever he wants, with little consideration to the consequences with one important caveat. During the Russian financial crash of August 1998, Putin learned that financial crises are politically destabilizing and must be avoided at all costs. Therefore, he cares about financial stability. — Anders Åslund, "The Illusions of Putin's Russia" The period after 2012 also saw mass protests against the falsification of elections, censorship and toughening of free assembly laws. See also: 2011–2013 Russian protests, Bolotnaya Square case, and 2017–2018 Russian protests See also: Freedom of assembly in Russia, Media freedom in Russia, and Internet censorship in Russia In July 2000, according to a law proposed by Putin and approved by the Federal Assembly of Russia, Putin gained the right to dismiss the heads of the 89 federal subjects. In 2004, the direct election of those heads (usually called "governors") by popular vote was replaced with a system whereby they would be nominated by the president and approved or disapproved by regional legislatures.[264][265] This was seen by Putin as a necessary move to stop separatist tendencies and get rid of those governors who were connected with organised crime.[266] This and other government actions effected under Putin's presidency have been criticised by many independent Russian media outlets and Western commentators as anti-democratic.[267][268] In 2012, as proposed by Putin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev, the direct election of governors was re-introduced.[269] During his first term in office, Putin opposed some of the Yeltsin-era oligarchs, as well as his political opponents, resulting in the exile or imprisonment of such people as Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky; other oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich and Arkady Rotenberg are friends and allies with Putin.[270] Putin succeeded in codifying land law and tax law and promulgated new codes on labor, administrative, criminal, commercial and civil procedural law.[271] Under Medvedev's presidency, Putin's government implemented some key reforms in the area of state security, the Russian police reform and the Russian military reform.[272] Economic, industrial, and energy policies See also: Economy of Russia, Russian financial crisis (2014–2016), Great Recession in Russia, and Energy policy of Russia Russian GDP since the end of the Soviet Union (beyond 2014 are forecasts) Sergey Guriyev, when talking about Putin's economic policy, divided it into four distinct periods: the "reform" years of his first term (1999–2003); the "statist" years of his second term (2004 – the first half of 2008); the world economic crisis and recovery (the second half of 2008–2013); and the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia's growing isolation from the global economy, and stagnation (2014–present).[273] In 2000, Putin launched the "Programme for the Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation for the Period 2000–2010", but it was abandoned in 2008 when it was 30% complete.[274] Fueled by the 2000s commodities boom including record-high oil prices,[12][13] under the Putin administration from 2000 to 2016, an increase in income in USD terms was 4.5 times.[275] During Putin's first eight years in office, industry grew substantially, as did production, construction, real incomes, credit, and the middle class.[276][277] A fund for oil revenue allowed Russia to repay all of the Soviet Union's debts by 2005.[278] Russia joined the World Trade Organization on 22 August 2012.[279] In 2006, Putin launched an industry consolidation programme to bring the main aircraft-producing companies under a single umbrella organization, the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC).[280][281] In September 2020, the UAC general director announced that the UAC will receive the largest-ever post-Soviet government support package for the aircraft industry in order to pay and renegotiate the debt.[282][283] In 2014, Putin signed a deal to supply China with 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. Power of Siberia, which Putin has called the "world's biggest construction project", was launched in 2019 and is expected to continue for 30 years at an ultimate cost to China of $400bn.[284] The ongoing financial crisis began in the second half of 2014 when the Russian ruble collapsed due to a decline in the price of oil and international sanctions against Russia. These events in turn led to loss of investor confidence and capital flight, though it has also been argued that the sanctions had little to no effect on Russia's economy.[285][286][287] In 2014, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project named Putin their Person of the Year for furthering corruption and organized crime.[288][289] According to Meduza, Putin has since 2007 predicted on a number of occasions that Russia will become one of the world's five largest economies. In 2013, he said Russia was one of the five biggest economies in terms of gross domestic product but still lagged behind other countries on indicators such as labour productivity.[290] Environmental policy Main articles: Environment of Russia and Environmental issues in Russia In 2004, Putin signed the Kyoto Protocol treaty designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[291] However, Russia did not face mandatory cuts, because the Kyoto Protocol limits emissions to a percentage increase or decrease from 1990 levels and Russia's greenhouse-gas emissions fell well below the 1990 baseline due to a drop in economic output after the breakup of the Soviet Union.[292] Putin personally supervises a number of protection programmes for rare and endangered animals in Russia, such as the Amur tiger, the white whale, the polar bear and the snow leopard.[293][294][295][296] Religious policy Main article: Religion in Russia Putin with religious leaders of Russia, February 2001 Putin regularly attends the most important services of the Russian Orthodox Church on the main holy days, and has established a good relationship with Patriarchs of the Russian Church, the late Alexy II of Moscow and the current Kirill of Moscow. As president, Putin took an active personal part in promoting the Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, signed 17 May 2007, which restored relations between the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia after the 80-year schism.[297] Under Putin, the Hasidic Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia became increasingly influential within the Jewish community, partly due to the influence of Federation-supporting businessmen mediated through their alliances with Putin, notably Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich.[298][299] According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Putin is popular amongst the Russian Jewish community, who see him as a force for stability. Russia's chief rabbi, Berel Lazar, said Putin "paid great attention to the needs of our community and related to us with a deep respect".[300] In 2016, Ronald S. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, also praised Putin for making Russia "a country where Jews are welcome".[301] Human rights organizations and religious freedom advocates have also, however, criticized the state of religious freedom in Russia.[302] In 2016, Putin oversaw the passage of legislation that prohibited missionary activity in Russia.[302] Nonviolent religious minority groups have been repressed under anti-extremism laws. Military development Main article: 2008 Russian military reform Putin with Russia's long-serving minister of defense, Army General Sergey Shoygu, in the Eastern Military District, 2013 The resumption of long-distance flights of Russia's strategic bombers was followed by the announcement by Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov during his meeting with Putin on 5 December 2007, that 11 ships, including the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov, would take part in the first major navy sortie into the Mediterranean since Soviet times.[303][304] While from the early 2000s Russia started placing more money into its military and defense industry, it was only in 2008 that full-scale Russian military reform began, aiming to modernize the Russian Armed Forces and make them significantly more effective. The reform was largely carried out by Defense Minister Serdyukov during Medvedev's presidency, under the supervision of both Putin, as the Head of Government, and Medvedev, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces. Key elements of the reform included reducing the armed forces to a strength of one million; reducing the number of officers; centralising officer training from 65 military schools into 10 'systemic' military training centres; creating a professional NCO corps; reducing the size of the central command; introducing more civilian logistics and auxiliary staff; elimination of cadre-strength formations; reorganising the reserves; reorganising the army into a brigade system, and reorganising air forces into an airbase system instead of regiments.[305] The number of Russia's military districts was reduced to four. The term of draft service was reduced from two years to one. The gradual transition to the majority professional army by the late 2010s was announced, and a large programme of supplying the Armed Forces with new military equipment and ships was started. The Russian Space Forces were replaced on 1 December 2011 with the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. According to the Kremlin, Putin embarked on a build-up of Russia's nuclear capabilities because of U.S. President George W. Bush's unilateral decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.[306] To counter what Putin sees as the United States’ goal of undermining Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent, Moscow has embarked on a program to develop new weapons capable of defeating any new American ballistic missile defense or interception system. Some analysts believe that this nuclear strategy under Putin has brought Russia into violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Accordingly, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would no longer consider itself bound by the treaty's provisions, raising nuclear tensions between the two powers.[307] This prompted Putin to state that Russia would not launch first in a nuclear conflict but that "an aggressor should know that vengeance is inevitable, that he will be annihilated, and we would be the victims of the aggression. We will go to heaven as martyrs".[308] Putin has also sought to increase Russian territorial claims in the Arctic and its military presence there. In August 2007, Russian expedition Arktika 2007, part of research related to the 2001 Russian territorial extension claim, planted a flag on the seabed at the North Pole.[309] Both Russian submarines and troops deployed in the Arctic have been increasing.[310][311] Human rights policy Main article: Human rights in Russia See also: Russian foreign agent law, Russian Internet Restriction Bill, and Dima Yakovlev Law Russian opposition protest in Moscow, 26 February 2017 New York City-based NGO Human Rights Watch, in a report entitled Laws of Attrition, authored by Hugh Williamson, the British director of HRW's Europe & Central Asia Division, has claimed that since May 2012, when Putin was re-elected as president, Russia has enacted many restrictive laws, started inspections of non-governmental organizations, harassed, intimidated and imprisoned political activists, and started to restrict critics. The new laws include the "foreign agents" law, which is widely regarded as over-broad by including Russian human rights organizations which receive some international grant funding, the treason law, and the assembly law which penalizes many expressions of dissent.[312][313] Human rights activists have criticized Russia for censoring speech of LGBT activists due to "the gay propaganda law"[314] and increasing violence against LGBT+ people due to the law.[315][316][317] In 2020, Putin signed a law on labelling individuals and organizations receiving funding from abroad as "foreign agents". The law is an expansion of "foreign agent" legislation adopted in 2012.[318][319] As of June 2020, per Memorial Human Rights Center, there were 380 political prisoners in Russia, including 63 individuals prosecuted, directly or indirectly, for political activities (including Alexey Navalny) and 245 prosecuted for their involvement with one of the Muslim organizations that are banned in Russia. 78 individuals on the list, i.e. more than 20% of the total, are residents of Crimea.[320][321] The media See also: Mass media in Russia and Media freedom in Russia Scott Gehlbach, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has claimed that since 1999, Putin has systematically punished journalists who challenge his official point of view.[322] Maria Lipman, an American writing in Foreign Affairs claims, "The crackdown that followed Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012 extended to the liberal media, which had until then been allowed to operate fairly independently."[323] The Internet has attracted Putin's attention because his critics have tried to use it to challenge his control of information.[324] Marian K. Leighton, who worked for the CIA as a Soviet analyst in the 1980s says, "Having muzzled Russia's print and broadcast media, Putin focused his energies on the Internet."[325] Robert W. Orttung and Christopher Walker report: Reporters Without Borders, for instance, ranked Russia 148 in its 2013 list of 179 countries in terms of freedom of the press. It particularly criticized Russia for the crackdown on the political opposition and the failure of the authorities to vigorously pursue and bring to justice criminals who have murdered journalists. Freedom House ranks Russian media as "not free", indicating that basic safeguards and guarantees for journalists and media enterprises are absent.[326] In the early 2000s, Putin began promoting the idea in Russian media that they are the modern-day version of the 17th-century Romanov tsars who ended Russia's "Time of Troubles", meaning they claim to be the peacemakers and stabilizers after the fall of the Soviet Union.[327] Promoting conservatism Putin attends the Orthodox Christmas service in the village Turginovo in Kalininsky District, Tver Oblast, 7 January 2016 Putin has promoted explicitly conservative policies in social, cultural, and political matters, both at home and abroad. Putin has attacked globalism and neo-liberalism and is identified by scholars with Russian conservatism.[328] Putin has promoted new think tanks that bring together like-minded intellectuals and writers. For example, the Izborsky Club, founded in 2012 by the conservative right-wing journalist Alexander Prokhanov, stresses (i) Russian nationalism, (ii) the restoration of Russia's historical greatness, and (iii) systematic opposition to liberal ideas and policies.[329] Vladislav Surkov, a senior government official, has been one of the key economics consultants during Putin's presidency.[330] In cultural and social affairs Putin has collaborated closely with the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Church, endorsed his election in 2012 stating Putin's terms were like "a miracle of God."[331] Steven Myers reports, "The church, once heavily repressed, had emerged from the Soviet collapse as one of the most respected institutions... Now Kiril led the faithful directly into an alliance with the state."[332] Mark Woods, a Baptist Union of Great Britain minister and contributing editor to Christian Today, provides specific examples of how the Church has backed the expansion of Russian power into Crimea and eastern Ukraine.[333] Some Russian Orthodox believers consider Putin a corrupt and brutal strongman or even a tyrant. Others do not admire him, but appreciate that he aggravates their political opponents. Still others appreciate that Putin defends some although not all Orthodox teachings, whether or not he believes in them himself.[334] On abortion, Putin stated that, "In the modern world, the decision is up to the woman herself",[335] which puts him at odds with the Russian Orthodox Church.[336][337] In 2020, he supported efforts to reduce the number of abortions instead of prohibiting it.[338] Also in 2020, Putin supported the 2020 Russian constitutional referendum which passed, it defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman in the Constitution of Russia.[339][340][341] International sporting events photograph of a man in a red sweater giving a hug for a man wearing a suit Captain of the Canada national team Corey Perry giving Putin a hug after winning the gold medal at the 2016 IIHF World Championship In 2007, Putin led a successful effort on behalf of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics,[342] the first Winter Olympic Games to ever be hosted by Russia. Likewise, in 2008, the city of Kazan won the bid for the 2013 Summer Universiade, and on 2 December 2010 Russia won the right to host the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup, also for the first time in Russian history. In 2013, Putin stated that gay athletes would not face any discrimination at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.[343] Foreign policy Main article: Foreign policy of Vladimir Putin See also: Foreign relations of Russia and List of international presidential trips made by Vladimir Putin Putin's visit to the United States, November 2001 Leonid Bershidsky analyzed Putin's interview with the Financial Times and concluded, "Putin is an imperialist of the old Soviet school, rather than a nationalist or a racist, and he has cooperated with, and promoted, people who are known to be gay."[344] Putin spoke favorably of artificial intelligence in regards to foreign policy, "Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world."[345] Mikhail Khodorkovsky stated, "[Putin] would like to sit at a table with the US president, and maybe the president of China, and just these three will decide the fate of the world."[346] Asia See also: India–Russia relations, Sino-Russian relations since 1991, and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Putin with Xi Jinping during a state visit to Moscow, May 2015 In 2012, Putin wrote an article in Indian newspaper The Hindu, saying that "The Declaration on Strategic Partnership between India and Russia signed in October 2000 became a truly historic step".[347][348] Today, India remains the largest customer of Russian military equipment, and the two countries share a historically strong strategic and diplomatic relationship.[349] Russia, under Putin, has maintained positive relations with the Asian states of SCO and BRICS.[350][351] In the 21st century, Sino-Russian relations have significantly strengthened bilaterally and economically—the Treaty of Friendship, and the construction of the ESPO oil pipeline and the Power of Siberia gas pipeline formed a special relationship between the two great powers.[352] Post-Soviet states Further information: Colour revolution, Russia–Ukraine relations, Belarus–Russia relations, Georgia–Russia relations, Kyrgyzstan–Russia relations, Kazakhstan–Russia relations, and Eurasian Economic Union The Eurasian Union with its current members: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan Under Putin, the Kremlin has consistently stated that Russia has a sphere of influence and "privileged interests" over other Post-Soviet states, which are referred to as the "near abroad" in Russia. It has also been stated that the post-Soviet states are strategically vital to Russian interests.[353] Some Russia experts have compared this concept to the Monroe Doctrine.[354] A series of so-called colour revolutions in the post-Soviet states, namely the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, led to frictions in the relations of those countries with Russia. In December 2004, Putin criticized the Rose and Orange revolutions, saying: "If you have permanent revolutions you risk plunging the post-Soviet space into endless conflict".[355] Putin allegedly declared at a NATO-Russia summit in 2008 that if Ukraine joined NATO Russia could contend to annex the Ukrainian East and Crimea.[356] At the summit, he told US President George W. Bush that "Ukraine is not even a state!" while the following year Putin referred to Ukraine as "Little Russia".[357] Following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution in March 2014, the Russian Federation annexed Crimea.[358][359][360] According to Putin, this was done because "Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia".[361] After the Russian annexation of Crimea, he said that Ukraine includes "regions of Russia's historic south" and "was created on a whim by the Bolsheviks".[362] He went on to declare that the February 2014 ousting of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had been orchestrated by the West as an attempt to weaken Russia. "Our Western partners have crossed a line. They behaved rudely, irresponsibly and unprofessionally," he said, adding that the people who had come to power in Ukraine were "nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites".[362] In a July 2014 speech during a Russian-supported armed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine, Putin stated he would use Russia's "entire arsenal of available means" up to "operations under international humanitarian law and the right of self-defence" to protect Russian speakers outside Russia.[363][364] With the attainment of autocephaly by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in December 2018 and subsequent schism of the Russian Orthodox Church from Constantinople, a number of experts came to the conclusion that Putin's policy of forceful engagement in post-Soviet republics significantly backfired on him, leading to a situation where he "annexed Crimea, but lost Ukraine", and provoked a much more cautious approach to Russia among other post-Soviet countries.[365][366] In late August 2014, Putin stated: "People who have their own views on history and the history of our country may argue with me, but it seems to me that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples are practically one people".[367] After making a similar statement, in late December 2015 he stated: "the Ukrainian culture, as well as Ukrainian literature, surely has a source of its own".[368] In July 2021 he published a lengthy article "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" revisiting these themes, and saying the formation of a Ukrainian state hostile to Moscow was "comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us",[369][370]—it was made mandatory reading for military-political training in the Russian Armed Forces.[371] In August 2008, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili attempted to restore control over the breakaway South Ossetia. However, the Georgian military was soon defeated in the resulting 2008 South Ossetia War after regular Russian forces entered South Ossetia and then other parts of Georgia, then also opened a second front in the other Georgian breakaway province of Abkhazia with Abkhazian forces.[372][373] Despite existing or past tensions between Russia and most of the post-Soviet states, Putin has followed the policy of Eurasian integration. Putin endorsed the idea of a Eurasian Union in 2011;[374][375] the concept was proposed by the President of Kazakhstan in 1994.[376] On 18 November 2011, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement setting a target of establishing the Eurasian Union by 2015.[377] The Eurasian Union was established on 1 January 2015.[378] United States, Western Europe, and NATO See also: Russia–NATO relations, Russia–United States relations, and Anti-American sentiment in Russia Putin with U.S. President Donald Trump at the summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, 16 July 2018 Under Putin, Russia's relationships with NATO and the U.S. have passed through several stages. When he first became president, relations were cautious, but after the 9/11 attacks Putin quickly supported the U.S. in the War on Terror and the opportunity for partnership appeared.[379] According to Stephen F. Cohen, the U.S. "repaid by further expansion of NATO to Russia's borders and by unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty",[379] but others pointed out the applications from new countries willing to join NATO was driven primarily by Russian's behavior in Chechnya, Transnitria, Abkhazia, Yanayev putsch as well as calls to restore USSR in its previous borders by prominent Russian politicians.[380][381] From 2003, when Russia strongly opposed the U.S. when it waged the Iraq War, Putin became ever more distant from the West, and relations steadily deteriorated. According to Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen, the narrative of the mainstream U.S. media, following that of the White House, became anti-Putin.[379] In an interview with Michael StĂźrmer, Putin said there were three questions which most concerned Russia and Eastern Europe: namely, the status of Kosovo, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and American plans to build missile defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, and suggested that all three were linked.[382] His view was that concessions by the West on one of the questions might be met with concessions from Russia on another.[382] Putin with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002 In a January 2007 interview, Putin said Russia was in favor of a democratic multipolar world and strengthening the systems of international law.[383] In February 2007, Putin criticized what he called the United States' monopolistic dominance in global relations, and "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations". He said the result of it is that "no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race".[384] This came to be known as the Munich Speech, and NATO secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called the speech "disappointing and not helpful."[385] The months following Putin's Munich Speech[384] were marked by tension and a surge in rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic. Both Russian and American officials, however, denied the idea of a new cold war.[386] Putin publicly opposed plans for the U.S. missile shield in Europe and presented President George W. Bush with a counterproposal on 7 June 2007 which was declined.[387] Russia suspended its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty on 11 December 2007.[388] Putin opposed Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, warning that it would destabilize the whole system of international relations.[389] He described the recognition of Kosovo's independence by several major world powers as "a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over centuries", and that "they have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face".[390] In March 2014, Putin used Kosovo's declaration of independence as a justification for recognizing the independence of Crimea, citing the so-called "Kosovo independence precedent".[391][392] After the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, Putin had good relations with American President George W. Bush, and many western European leaders. His "cooler" and "more business-like" relationship with German chancellor, Angela Merkel is often attributed to Merkel's upbringing in the former DDR, where Putin was stationed as a KGB agent.[393] He had a very friendly and warm relationship with the former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi;[394] the two leaders often described their relationship as a close friendship, continuing to organize bilateral meetings even after Berlusconi's resignation in November 2011.[395] Putin held a meeting in Sochi with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline in May 2018. According to Putin, he, like all of Russia, has a particularly good relationship to neighboring country Finland.[396] Picture of Putin handshaking with Sauli NiinistĂś, the President of Finland, in August 2019. The NATO-led military intervention in Libya in 2011 prompted a widespread wave of criticism from several world leaders, including Putin, who said that "[UNSC Resolution 1973] is defective and flawed...It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades."[397] In late 2013, Russian-American relations deteriorated further when the United States canceled a summit for the first time since 1960 after Putin gave asylum to American Edward Snowden, who had leaked massive amounts of classified information from the NSA.[398][399] In 2014, Russia was suspended from the G8 group as a result of its annexation of Crimea.[400][401] However, in June 2015, Putin said that Russia has no intention of attacking NATO.[402] On 9 November 2016, Putin congratulated Donald Trump on becoming the 45th President of the United States.[403] In December 2016, US intelligence officials (headed by James Clapper) quoted by CBS News stated that Putin approved the email hacking and cyber attacks during the U.S. election, against the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. A spokesman for Putin denied the reports.[404] Putin has repeatedly accused Hillary Clinton, who served as U.S. Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, of interfering in Russia's internal affairs,[405] and in December 2016, Clinton accused Putin of having a personal grudge against her.[406][407] With the election of Trump, Putin's favorability in the U.S. increased. A Gallup poll in February 2017 revealed a positive view of Putin among 22% of Americans, the highest since 2003.[408] However, Putin has stated that U.S.–Russian relations, already at the lowest level since the end of the Cold War,[409] have continued to deteriorate after Trump took office in January 2017.[410] On 18 June 2020, The National Interest published a nine thousand word essay by Putin, titled 'The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II'.[411] In the essay, Putin criticizes the western historical view of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as the start of World War II, stating that the Munich Agreement was the beginning.[412] United Kingdom Putin and his wife Lyudmila meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005 In 2003, relations between Russia and the United Kingdom deteriorated when the United Kingdom granted political asylum to Putin's former patron, oligarch Boris Berezovsky.[413] This deterioration was intensified by allegations that the British were spying and making secret payments to pro-democracy and human rights groups.[414] Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko Main article: Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko The end of 2006 brought more strained relations in the wake of the death by polonium poisoning in London of former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who became an MI6 agent in 2003. In 2007, the crisis in relations continued with expulsion of four Russian envoys over Russia's refusal to extradite former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi to face charges in the murder of Litvinenko.[413] Mirroring the British actions, Russia expelled UK diplomats and took other retaliatory steps.[413] In 2015–16, the British Government conducted an inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko.[415] Its report states, "The FSB operation to kill Mr. Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin." The report outlined some possible motives for the murder, including Litvinenko's public statements and books about the alleged involvement of the FSB in mass murder, and what was "undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism" between Putin and Litvinenko, led to the murder. Poisoning of Sergei Skripal Main article: Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal On 4 March 2018, former double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury.[416] Ten days later, the British government formally accused the Russian state of attempted murder, a charge which Russia denied.[417] After the UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats (an action which would later be responded to with a Russian expulsion of 23 British diplomats),[418] British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on 16 March that it was "overwhelmingly likely" Putin had personally ordered the poisoning of Skripal. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the allegation "shocking and unpardonable diplomatic misconduct".[419] Australia and Latin America Putin with the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, at the 2019 G20 summit in Osaka, Japan See also: Australia–Russia relations, Russia–Venezuela relations, Cuba–Russia relations, and Argentina–Russia relations Putin and his successor, Medvedev, enjoyed warm relations with Hugo ChĂĄvez of Venezuela. Much of this has been through the sale of military equipment; since 2005, Venezuela has purchased more than $4 billion worth of arms from Russia.[420] In September 2008, Russia sent Tupolev Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela to carry out training flights.[421] In November 2008, both countries held a joint naval exercise in the Caribbean. Earlier in 2000, Putin had re-established stronger ties with Fidel Castro's Cuba.[422] In September 2007, Putin visited Indonesia and in doing so became the first Russian leader to visit the country in more than 50 years.[423] In the same month, Putin also attended the APEC meeting held in Sydney where he met with Prime Minister John Howard, and signed a uranium trade deal for Australia to sell uranium to Russia. This was the first visit by a Russian president to Australia.[424] Putin again visited Australia for 2014 G20 Brisbane summit. The Abbott Government denounced Putin's use of military force in Ukraine in 2014 as "bullying" and "utterly unacceptable".[425] Amid calls to ban Putin from attending the 2014 G20 Summit, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he would "shirtfront" (challenge) the Russian leader over the shooting down of MH17 by Russian backed rebels, which had killed 38 Australians.[426] Putin denied responsibility for the killings.[427] Middle East and North Africa See also: Israel–Russia relations and Iran–Russia relations Putin with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, September 2018 On 16 October 2007, Putin visited Iran to participate in the Second Caspian Summit in Tehran,[428][429] where he met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[430][431] This was the first visit of a Soviet or Russian leader[432] to Iran since Joseph Stalin's participation in the Tehran Conference in 1943, and thus marked a significant event in Iran-Russia relations.[433] At a press conference after the summit Putin said that "all our (Caspian) states have the right to develop their peaceful nuclear programmes without any restrictions".[434] Putin was quoted as describing Iran as a "partner",[382] though he expressed concerns over the Iranian nuclear programme.[382] In April 2008, Putin became the first Russian President who visited Libya.[435] Putin condemned the foreign military intervention of Libya, he called UN resolution as "defective and flawed," and added "It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades."[436] Upon the death of Muammar Gaddafi, Putin called it as "planned murder" by the US, saying: "They showed to the whole world how he (Gaddafi) was killed," and "There was blood all over. Is that what they call a democracy?"[437][438] From 2000 to 2010, Russia sold around $1.5 billion worth of arms to Syria, making Damascus Moscow's seventh-largest client.[439] During the Syrian civil war, Russia threatened to veto any sanctions against the Syrian government,[440] and continued to supply arms to its regime. Putin opposed any foreign intervention. In June 2012, in Paris, he rejected the statement of French President François Hollande who called on Bashar Al-Assad to step down. Putin echoed Assad's argument that anti-regime militants were responsible for much of the bloodshed. He also talked about previous NATO interventions and their results, and asked "What is happening in Libya, in Iraq? Did they become safer? Where are they heading? Nobody has an answer".[441] On 11 September 2013, The New York Times published an op-ed by Putin urging caution against US intervention in Syria and criticizing American exceptionalism.[442] Putin subsequently helped to arrange for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons.[443] In 2015, he took a stronger pro-Assad stance[444] and mobilized military support for the regime. Some analysts have summarized Putin as being allied with Shiites and Alawites in the Middle East.[445][446] In October 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the United Arab Emirates, where six agreements were struck with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. One of them included shared investments between Russian sovereign wealth fund and the Emirati investment fund Mubadala. The two nations signed deals worth over $1.3bn, in energy, health and advance technology sectors.[447] Public image Main article: Public image of Vladimir Putin Putin opens the Wall of Grief, a monument to victims of Stalinist repression, 30 October 2017 Polls and rankings According to a June 2007 public opinion survey, Putin's approval rating was 81%, the second highest of any leader in the world that year.[448] In January 2013, at the time of the 2011–2013 Russian protests, Putin's approval rating fell to 62%, the lowest figure since 2000 and a ten-point drop over two years.[449] By May 2014, Putin's approval rating hit its highest since 2008, and was 83%. After EU and U.S. sanctions against Russian officials as a result of the crisis in Ukraine, Putin's approval rating reached 87%, according to a survey published on 6 August 2014.[450] In February 2015, based on new domestic polling, Putin was ranked the world's most popular politician.[451] In June 2015, Putin's approval rating climbed to 89%, an all-time high.[452][453][454] In 2016, the approval rating was 81%.[455] Observers saw Putin's high approval ratings in 2010's as a consequence of significant improvements in living standards, and Russia's reassertion of itself on the world scene during his presidency.[456][457] Despite high approval for Putin, confidence in the Russian economy was low, dropping to levels in 2016 that rivaled the recent lows in 2009 at the height of the global economic crisis. Just 14% of Russians in 2016 said their national economy was getting better, and 18% said this about their local economies.[458] Putin's performance at reining in corruption is also unpopular among Russians. Newsweek reported in June 2017 that "An opinion poll by the Moscow-based Levada Center indicated that 67 percent held Putin personally responsible for high-level corruption".[459] Vladimir Putin approval 1999–2020 (Levada, 2020) Vladimir Putin's public approval 1999–2020 (Levada, 2020)[460] In July 2018, Putin's approval rating fell to 63% and just 49% would vote for Putin if presidential elections were held.[461] Levada poll results published in September 2018 showed Putin's personal trustworthiness levels at 39% (decline from 59% in November 2017)[462] with the main contributing factor being the presidential support of the unpopular pension reform and economic stagnation.[463][464] In October 2018, two-thirds of Russians surveyed in Levada poll agreed that "Putin bears full responsibility for the problems of the country" which has been attributed[465] to decline of a popular belief in "good tsar and bad boyars", a traditional attitude towards justifying failures of top of ruling hierarchy in Russia.[466] In January 2019, the percentage of Russians trusting the president hit a then-historic minimum – 33.4%.[467] It declined further to 31.7% in May 2019[468] which led to a dispute between the VCIOM and President's administration office, who accused it of incorrectly using an open question, after which VCIOM repeated the poll with a closed question getting 72.3%.[469] Nonetheless, in April 2019 Gallup poll showed a record number of Russians (20%) willing to permanently emigrate from Russia.[470] The decline is even larger in the 17–25 age group, "who find themselves largely disconnected from the country's aging leadership, nostalgic Soviet rhetoric and nepotistic agenda", according to a report prepared by Vladimir Milov. The percentage of people willing to emigrate permanently in this age group is 41% and 60% has favorable views on the United States (three times more than in the 55+ age group).[471] Decline in support for president and the government is also visible in other polls, such as rapidly growing readiness to protest against poor living conditions.[469] In May 2020, amid the C19 crisis, Putin's approval rating was 67.9%, measured by VCIOM when respondents were presented a list of names (closed question),[472] and 27% when respondents were expected to name politicians they trust (open question).[473] In a closed-question survey conducted by Levada, the approval rating was 59%[474] which has been attributed to continued post-Crimea economic stagnation but also an apathetic response to the pandemic crisis in Russia.[475] In another May 2021 Levada poll, 33% indicated Putin in response to "who would you vote for this weekend?" among Moscow respondents and 40% outside of Moscow.[476] The Levada Center survey released in October 2021 found 53% of respondents saying they trusted Putin.[477] Polls conducted in November 2021 on the wake of failure of Russian C19 vaccination campaign indicated that distrust of Putin personally are one of the major contributing factor for vaccine hesitancy among citizens, with regional polls indicating numbers as low as 20–30% in Volga Federal District.[478] The Levada Center survey showed that 58% of surveyed Russians supported the 2017 Russian protests against high-level corruption.[479] Assessments Critics state that Putin has moved Russia in an autocratic direction, weakening the system of representative government advocated by Boris Yeltsin.[480] Putin has been described as a "dictator" by political opponent Garry Kasparov,[481] as a "bully" and "arrogant" by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,[482][483][484] and as "self-centered" by the Dalai Lama.[485] Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in 2014 that the West has demonized Putin.[486] Egon Krenz, former leader of East Germany, said the Cold War never ended and that, "After weak presidents like Gorbachev and Yeltsin, it is a great fortune for Russia that it has [President Vladimir] Putin."[487] Many Russians credit Putin for reviving Russia's fortunes.[488] Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, while acknowledging the flawed democratic procedures and restrictions on media freedom during the Putin presidency, said that Putin had pulled Russia out of chaos at the end of the Yeltsin years, and that Russians "must remember that Putin saved Russia from the beginning of a collapse."[488][489] In 2015, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov said that Putin was turning Russia into a "raw materials colony" of China.[490] Chechen Republic head and Putin supporter, Ramzan Kadyrov, states that Putin saved both the Chechen people and Russia.[491] Russia has suffered democratic backsliding during Putin's tenure. Freedom House has listed Russia as being "not free" since 2005.[492] Experts do not generally consider Russia to be a democracy, citing purges and jailing of political opponents, curtailed press freedom, and the lack of free and fair elections.[493][494][16][17][495][496][497][498][499][500][501][502][503] In 2004, Freedom House warned that Russia's "retreat from freedom marks a low point not registered since 1989, when the country was part of the Soviet Union."[504] The Economist Intelligence Unit has rated Russia as "authoritarian" since 2011,[505] whereas it had previously been considered a "hybrid regime" (with "some form of democratic government" in place) as late as 2007.[506] According to political scientist Larry Diamond, writing in 2015, "no serious scholar would consider Russia today a democracy".[507] See also: Media freedom in Russia, Human rights in Russia, and Internet censorship in Russia Personal image Main article: Public image of Vladimir Putin Putin driving an F1 car, 2010 (see video) Putin cultivates an outdoor, sporty, tough guy public image, demonstrating his physical prowess and taking part in unusual or dangerous acts, such as extreme sports and interaction with wild animals,[508] part of a public relations approach that, according to Wired, "deliberately cultivates the macho, take-charge superhero image".[509] For example, in 2007, the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda published a huge photograph of a shirtless Putin vacationing in the Siberian mountains under the headline: "Be Like Putin."[510] Numerous Kremlinologists have accused Putin of seeking to create a cult of personality around himself, an accusation that the Kremlin has denied.[511] Some of Putin's activities have been criticised for being staged;[512][513] outside of Russia, his macho image has been the subject of parody.[514][515][516] Putin is believed to be self-conscious about his height, which has been estimated by Kremlin insiders at between 155 and 165 centimetres (5 feet 1 inch and 5 feet 5 inches) tall but is usually given at 170 centimetres (5 feet 7 inches).[517][518] There are many songs about Putin,[519] and Putin's name and image are widely used in advertisement and product branding.[509] Among the Putin-branded products are Putinka vodka, the PuTin brand of canned food, the Gorbusha Putina caviar, and a collection of T-shirts with his image.[520] In 2015, his advisor Mikhail Lesin was found dead after "days of excessive consumption of alcohol", though this was later ruled an accident.[521] Publication recognition in the United States In 2007, he was the Time Person of the Year.[522][523] In 2015, he was No. 1 on the Time's Most Influential People List.[524][525] Forbes ranked him the World's Most Powerful Individual every year from 2013 to 2016.[526] He was ranked the second most powerful individual by Forbes in 2018.[527] Putinisms Putin has produced many aphorisms and catch-phrases known as putinisms.[528] Many of them were first made during his annual Q&A conferences, where Putin answered questions from journalists and other people in the studio, as well as from Russians throughout the country, who either phoned in or spoke from studios and outdoor sites across Russia. Putin is known for his often tough and sharp language, often alluding to Russian jokes and folk sayings.[528] Putin sometimes uses Russian criminal jargon (known as "fenya" in Russian), albeit not always correctly.[529] Electoral history Main article: Electoral history of Vladimir Putin Personal life Family Putin and Lyudmila Putina at their wedding, 28 July 1983 On 28 July 1983, Putin married Lyudmila Shkrebneva, and they lived together in East Germany from 1985 to 1990. They have two daughters, Mariya Putina, born 28 April 1985 in Leningrad, and Yekaterina Putina, born 31 August 1986 in Dresden, East Germany.[530] An investigation by Proekt Media published in November 2020 alleged that Putin has another daughter, Elizaveta (known as Luiza Rozova[531]), born March 2003,[532] with Svetlana Krivonogikh.[4][533] In April 2008, the Moskovsky Korrespondent reported that Putin had divorced Lyudmila and was engaged to marry Olympic gold medalist Alina Kabaeva, a former rhythmic gymnast and Russian politician.[2] The story was denied[2] and the newspaper was shut down shortly thereafter.[3] Putin and Lyudmila continued to make public appearances together as spouses, while the status of his relationship with Kabaeva became a topic of speculation.[534][535][536][537] In the subsequent years, there were frequent unsubstantiated reports that Putin and Kabaeva had multiple children together, although these reports were denied.[538] On 6 June 2013, Putin and Lyudmila announced that their marriage was over, and, on 1 April 2014, the Kremlin confirmed that the divorce had been finalised.[539][540][541] In 2015, Kabaeva reportedly gave birth to a daughter; Putin is alleged to be the father.[538][535][5] In 2019, Kabaeva reportedly gave birth to twin sons by Putin.[6][542] Putin has two grandsons, born in 2012 and 2017.[543][544] His cousin, Igor Putin, was a director at Moscow-based Master Bank and was accused in a number of money laundering scandals.[545][546] Personal wealth See also: Panama Papers Official figures released during the legislative election of 2007 put Putin's wealth at approximately 3.7 million rubles (US$150,000) in bank accounts, a private 77.4-square-meter (833 sq ft) apartment in Saint Petersburg, and miscellaneous other assets.[547][548] Putin's reported 2006 income totaled 2 million rubles (approximately $80,000). In 2012, Putin reported an income of 3.6 million rubles ($113,000).[549][550] Putin has been photographed wearing a number of expensive wristwatches, collectively valued at $700,000, nearly six times his annual salary.[551][552] Putin has been known on occasion to give watches valued at thousands of dollars as gifts to peasants and factory workers.[553] Putin's close associate Arkady Rotenberg is mentioned in the Panama Papers, pictured 2018 According to Russian opposition politicians and journalists, Putin secretly possesses a multi-billion-dollar fortune[554][555] via successive ownership of stakes in a number of Russian companies.[556][557] According to one editorial in The Washington Post, "Putin might not technically own these 43 aircraft, but, as the sole political power in Russia, he can act like they're his".[558] Russian RIA journalist argued that "[Western] intelligence agencies (...) could not find anything". These contradictory claims were analyzed by Polygraph.info[559] which looked at a number of reports by Western (Anders Åslund estimate of $100–160 billion) and Russian (Stanislav Belkovsky estimated of $40 billion) analysts, CIA (estimate of $40 billion in 2007) as well as counterarguments of Russian media. Polygraph concluded: There is uncertainty on the precise sum of Putin's wealth, and the assessment by the Director of U.S. National Intelligence apparently is not yet complete. However, with the pile of evidence and documents in the Panama Papers and in the hands of independent investigators such as those cited by Dawisha, Polygraph.info finds that Danilov's claim that Western intelligence agencies have not been able to find evidence of Putin's wealth to be misleading — Polygraph.info, "Are 'Putin's Billions' a Myth?" In April 2016, 11 million documents belonging to Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca were leaked to the German newspaper SĂźddeutsche Zeitung and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The name of Vladimir Putin does not appear in any of the records, and Putin denied his involvement with the company.[560] However, various media have reported on three of Putin's associates on the list.[561] According to the Panama Papers leak, close trusted associates of Putin own offshore companies worth US$2 billion in total.[562] The German newspaper SĂźddeutsche Zeitung regards the possibility of Putin's family profiting from this money as plausible.[563][564] According to the paper, the US$2 billion had been "secretly shuffled through banks and shadow companies linked to Putin's associates", such as construction billionaires Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, and Bank Rossiya, previously identified by the U.S. State Department as being treated by Putin as his personal bank account, had been central in facilitating this. It concludes that "Putin has shown he is willing to take aggressive steps to maintain secrecy and protect [such] communal assets."[565][566] A significant proportion of the money trail leads to Putin's best friend Sergei Roldugin. Although a musician, and in his own words, not a businessman, it appears he has accumulated assets valued at $100m, and possibly more. It has been suggested he was picked for the role because of his low profile.[561] There have been speculations that Putin, in fact, owns the funds,[567] and Roldugin just acted as a proxy.[568] Garry Kasparov said, "[Putin] controls enough money, probably more than any other individual in the history of human race".[569] Residences Official government residences Putin receives Barack Obama at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, 2009 As president and prime-minister, Putin has lived in numerous official residences throughout the country.[570] These residences include: the Moscow Kremlin, Novo-Ogaryovo in Moscow Oblast, Gorki-9[ru] near Moscow, Bocharov Ruchey in Sochi, Dolgiye Borody[ru] in Novgorod Oblast, and Riviera in Sochi.[571] In August 2012, critics of Putin listed the ownership of 20 villas and palaces, nine of which were built during Putin's 12 years in power.[572] Personal residences Soon after Putin returned from his KGB service in Dresden, East Germany, he built a dacha in Solovyovka on the eastern shore of Lake Komsomolskoye on the Karelian Isthmus in Priozersky District of Leningrad Oblast, near St. Petersburg. After the dacha burned down in 1996, Putin built a new one identical to the original and was joined by a group of seven friends who built dachas nearby. In 1996, the group formally registered their fraternity as a co-operative society, calling it Ozero ("Lake") and turning it into a gated community.[573] A massive Italianate-style mansion costing an alleged US$1 billion[574] and dubbed "Putin's Palace" is under construction near the Black Sea village of Praskoveevka. In 2012, Sergei Kolesnikov, a former business associate of Putin's, told the BBC's Newsnight programme that he had been ordered by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to oversee the building of the palace.[575] He also said that the mansion, built on government land and sporting 3 helipads, a private road paid for from state funds and guarded by officials wearing uniforms of the official Kremlin guard service, have been built for Putin's private use.[576] Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Kolesnikov's allegations against Putin as untrue, saying that "Putin has never had any relationship to this palace."[577] On 19 January 2021, two days after Alexei Navalny was detained by Russian authorities upon his return to Russia, a video investigation by him and the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) was published accusing Putin of using fraudulently obtained funds to build the estate for himself in what he called "the world's biggest bribe." In the investigation, Navalny said that the estate is 39 times the size of Monaco and cost over 100 billion rubles ($1.35 billion) to construct. It also showed aerial footage of the estate via a drone and a detailed floorplan of the palace that Navalny said was given by a contractor, which he compared to photographs from inside the palace that were leaked onto the Internet in 2011. He also detailed an elaborate corruption scheme allegedly involving Putin's inner circle that allowed Putin to hide billions of dollars to build the estate.[578][579][580] Pets Main article: Pets of Vladimir Putin Putin has received five dogs from various nation leaders: Konni, Buffy, Yume, Verni and Pasha. Konni died in 2014. When Putin first became president, the family had two poodles, Tosya and Rodeo. They reportedly stayed with his ex-wife Lyudmila after their divorce.[581] Religion Putin and wife Lyudmila in New York at a service for victims of the September 11 attacks, 16 November 2001 Putin is Russian Orthodox. His mother was a devoted Christian believer who attended the Russian Orthodox Church, while his father was an atheist.[582] Though his mother kept no icons at home, she attended church regularly, despite government persecution of her religion at that time. His mother secretly baptized him as a baby, and she regularly took him to services.[26] According to Putin, his religious awakening began after a serious car crash involving his wife in 1993, and a life-threatening fire that burned down their dacha in August 1996.[582] Shortly before an official visit to Israel, Putin's mother gave him his baptismal cross, telling him to get it blessed. Putin states, "I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since."[26] When asked in 2007 whether he believes in God, he responded, "... There are things I believe, which should not in my position, at least, be shared with the public at large for everybody's consumption because that would look like self-advertising or a political striptease."[583] Putin's rumoured confessor is Russian Orthodox Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov.[584] However, the sincerity of his Christianity has been rejected by his former advisor Sergei Pugachev.[585] Sports Putin watches football and supports FC Zenit Saint Petersburg.[586] He also displays an interest in ice hockey and bandy.[587] Putin has been practicing judo since he was 11 years old,[588] before switching to sambo at the age of fourteen.[589] He won competitions in both sports in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). He was awarded eighth dan of the black belt in 2012, becoming the first Russian to achieve the status.[590] Putin also practises karate.[591] He co-authored a book entitled Judo with Vladimir Putin in Russian, and Judo: History, Theory, Practice in English (2004).[592] Benjamin Wittes, a black belt in taekwondo and aikido and editor of Lawfare, has disputed Putin's martial arts skills, stating that there is no video evidence of Putin displaying any real noteworthy judo skills.[593][594] Honours Civilian awards presented by different countries Date Country Decoration Presenter Notes 7 March 2001 Vietnam Vietnam Hochiminh Order ribbon.png Order of Ho Chi Minh[595] Vietnam's second highest distinction 2004 Kazakhstan Ord.GoldenEagle-ribbon.gif Order of the Golden Eagle[596] Kazakhstan's highest distinction 22 September 2006 France Legion Honneur GC ribbon.svg LĂŠgion d'honneur, Grand-Croix[597] President Jacques Chirac Grand-Croix (Grand Cross) rank is the highest French decoration 2007 Tajikistan Order Ismoili Somoni Rib.png Order of Ismoili Somoni[598] Tajikistan's highest distinction 12 February 2007 Saudi Arabia Spange des KĂśnig-Abdulaziz-Ordens.png Order of Abdulaziz al Saud[599] King Abdullah Saudi Arabia's highest civilian award 10 September 2007 UAE Order Zayed rib.png Order of Zayed[600] Sheikh Khalifa UAE's highest civil decoration 2 April 2010 Venezuela VEN Order of the Liberator - Grand Cordon BAR.png Order of the Liberator[601] President Hugo ChĂĄvez Venezuela's highest distinction 4 October 2013 Monaco MCO Order of Saint-Charles - Grand Cross BAR.png Order of Saint-Charles[602] Prince Albert Monaco's highest decoration 11 July 2014 Cuba Ribbon jose marti.png Order of JosĂŠ MartĂ­[603] President RaĂşl Castro Cuba's highest decoration 16 October 2014 Serbia Orden Republike Srbije.gif Order of the Republic of Serbia[604] President Tomislav Nikolić Grand Collar, Serbia's highest award 3 October 2017 Turkmenistan Order "For contribution to the development of cooperation" President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow 22 November 2017 Kyrgyzstan KRG Order Manas.png Order of Manas President Almazbek Atambayev 8 June 2018 China Order of Friendship[605] President Xi Jinping People's Republic of China's highest order of honour 28 May 2019 Kazakhstan OrdenNazar.png Order of Nazarbayev[606] Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev Honorary doctorates Date University/ Institute 2001 Baku Slavic University[607] 2001 Yerevan State University[608] 2001 Athens University[609] 2011 University of Belgrade[610] Other awards Year Award Notes 2006 Order of Sheikh ul-Islam A Muslim order,[611] awarded for his role in interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians in the region.[612] 24 March 2011 Order of Saint Sava[613] Serbian Orthodox Church's highest distinction. 15 November 2011 Confucius Peace Prize The China International Peace Research Centre awarded the Confucius Peace Prize to Putin, citing as reason Putin's opposition to NATO's Libya bombing in 2011 while also paying tribute to his decision to go to war in Chechnya in 1999.[614] According to the committee, Putin's "Iron hand and toughness revealed in this war impressed the Russians a lot, and he was regarded to be capable of bringing safety and stability to Russia".[615] 2015 Angel of Peace Medal Pope Francis presented Putin with the Angel of Peace Medal,[616] which is a customary gift to presidents visiting the Vatican.[617] Recognition Year Award/Recognition Description 2007 Time: Person of the Year "His final year as Russia's president has been his most successful yet. At home, he secured his political future. Abroad, he expanded his outsize—if not always benign—influence on global affairs."[618] December 2007 Expert: Person of the Year A Russian business-oriented weekly magazine named Putin as its Person of the Year.[619] 5 October 2008 Vladimir Putin Avenue The central street of Grozny, the capital of Russia's Republic of Chechnya, was renamed from the Victory Avenue to the Vladimir Putin Avenue, as ordered by the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.[620] February 2011 Vladimir Putin Peak The parliament of Kyrgyzstan named a peak in Tian Shan mountains Vladimir Putin Peak.[621] Notes  The Putins officially announced their separation in 2013 and the Kremlin confirmed the divorce had been finalized in 2014; however, it has been alleged that Putin and Lyudmila divorced in 2008.[2][3]  Putin has two daughters with his ex-wife Lyudmila. He is also alleged to have a third daughter with Svetlana Krivonogikh,[4] and a fourth daughter and twin sons with Alina Kabaeva,[5][6] although these reports have not been officially confirmed.  /ˈpuːtÉŞn/; Russian: Владимир Владимирович Путин, [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] (audio speaker iconlisten)  Putin took office as Prime Minister in August 1999 and became Acting President while remaining Prime Minister on 31 December 1999; he was later officially elected as President on 7 May 2000.  Russian: хозяйственное право, romanized: khozyaystvennoye pravo. References  "Vladimir Putin quits as head of Russia's ruling party". 24 April 2012. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 – via The Daily Telegraph.  "Putin Romance Rumors Keep Public Riveted". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 18 April 2008. Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2021.  Herszenhorn, David M. (5 May 2012). Written at Moscow. 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Retrieved 9 November 2021.  Liotta, Paul (7 October 2015). "On his birthday, 7 things you might not know about Russian president Vladimir Putin". New York Daily News. Retrieved 9 November 2021. Further reading See also: Bibliography of the post-Stalinist Soviet Union External video video icon Presentation by Masha Gessen on The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin 8 March 2012, C-SPAN Lourie, Richard (2017). Putin: His Downfall and Russia's Coming Crash. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-53808-8. Arutunyan, Anna (2015) [2012; Czech ed.]. The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia's Power Cult. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press. ISBN 978-1-56656-990-3. OCLC 881654740. Asmus, Ronald (2010). A Little War that Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West. NYU. ISBN 978-0-230-61773-5. Frye, Timothy. 2021. Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia. Princeton University Press. Gessen, Masha (2012). The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. London: Granta. ISBN 978-1-84708-149-0. Judah, Ben (2015). Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-20522-0. Lipman, Maria. "How Putin Silences Dissent: Inside the Kremlin's Crackdown." Foreign Affairs 95#1 (2016): 38+. Myers, Steven Lee. The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin (2015). Naylor, Aliide. The Shadow in the East: Vladimir Putin and the New Baltic Front (I.B. Tauris, 2020), 256 pp. Rosefielde, Steven. Putin's Russia: Economy, Defence and Foreign Policy (2020) excerpt Sakwa, Richard. The Putin Paradox (Bloomsbury, 2020) online. Sakwa, Richard. Putin Redux: Power and Contradiction in Contemporary Russia (2014). online review Sperling, Valerie. Sex, Politics, & Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia (Oxford UP, 2015). 360 pp. Stoner, Kathryn E. 2021. Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order. Oxford University Press. Toal, Gerard. Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest Over Ukraine and the Caucasus (Oxford UP, 2017). External links Vladimir Putin at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Official Kremlin Personal Website: Vladimir Putin Vladimir Putin at Curlie A Putin biography from the 2012–13 Stratfor email leak at WikiLeaks Appearances on C-SPAN Offices and distinctions Political offices Preceded by Nikolay Kovalyov Director of the Federal Security Service 1998–1999 Succeeded by Nikolai Patrushev Preceded by Nikolay Bordyuzha Secretary of the Security Council 1999 Succeeded by Sergei Ivanov Preceded by Sergei Stepashin Prime Minister of Russia 1999–2000 Succeeded by Mikhail Kasyanov Preceded by Boris Yeltsin President of Russia 2000–2008 Succeeded by Dmitry Medvedev Preceded by Viktor Zubkov Prime Minister of Russia 2008–2012 Succeeded by Dmitry Medvedev Preceded by Dmitry Medvedev President of Russia 2012–present Incumbent Diplomatic posts Preceded by Tony Blair Chair of the Group of 8 2006 Succeeded by Angela Merkel Preceded by Barack Obama Chair of APEC 2012 Succeeded by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Preceded by Felipe CalderĂłn Chair of the Group of 20 2013 Succeeded by Tony Abbott Party political offices Preceded by Boris Gryzlov Leader of United Russia 2008–2012 Succeeded by Dmitry Medvedev vte Vladimir Putin 4th President of Russia (2012–present)2nd President of Russia (2000–2008)33rd Prime Minister of Russia (1999–2000, 2008–2012) Political activities Electoral historyPresidential elections 2000 (campaign)2004 (campaign)2012 (campaign)2018 (campaign)First CabinetSecond CabinetUnited RussiaAll-Russia People's Front Vladimir Putin Presidency Inaugurations firstsecondthirdfourthPolitical groupsSovereign democracySpeeches Munich 2007Crimea 2014Valdai 2014Protests 2011–201320142017–20182019 Moscow election protests2020–2021 Khabarovsk Krai protests20212021 election protestsOpposition Domestic policy Legislation and programs national championspriority projectsstabilization fundPutin's Plan2008–2009 recession2014–2015 financial crisis Foreign policy International tripsUnited States summits Slovenia 2001Slovakia 2005Helsinki 2018Geneva 20212008 Russo-Georgian war2019 meeting with Kim Jong-unEuropean energy sector Russia–Ukraine gas disputesStrategic Offensive Reductions TreatyRusso-Ukrainian War 2014 Annexation of CrimeaWar in Donbas2021–2022 crisis2022 invasionSyrian Civil War military interventionRussian world Family Lyudmila Putina (former wife)Maria Vorontsova (daughter)Katerina Tikhonova (daughter)Pets Konni (family dog)Jorrit Faassen (son-in-law)Kirill Shamalov (former son-in-law) Public image Direct Line with Vladimir PutinFollowers Chapel of Russia's ResurrectionNashi movementPutinTeamWalking TogetherTributes "A man like Putin"Happy Birthday, Mr. Putin!Vladimir Putin PeakCriticism Putin khuylo!Putin Must GoPutin's PalacePutin. 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John Trump, (born June 14, 1946, New York, New York, U.S.), 45th president of the United States (2017–21). Trump was a real-estate developer and businessman who owned, managed, or licensed his name to several hotels, casinos, golf courses, resorts, and residential properties in the New York City area and around the world. From the 1980s Trump also lent his name to scores of retail ventures—including branded lines of clothing, cologne, food, and furniture—and to Trump University, which offered seminars in real-estate education from 2005 to 2010. In the early 21st century his private conglomerate, the Trump Organization, comprised some 500 companies involved in a wide range of businesses, including hotels and resorts, residential properties, merchandise, and entertainment and television. Trump was the third president in U.S. history (after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998) to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives and the only president to be impeached twice—once (in 2019) for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in connection with the Ukraine scandal and once (in 2021) for “incitement of insurrection” in connection with the storming of the United States Capitol by a violent mob of Trump supporters as Congress met in joint session to ceremonially count electoral college votes from the 2020 presidential election. Both of Trump’s impeachments ended in his acquittal by the U.S. Senate. Trump lost the 2020 election to former vice president Joe Biden by 306 electoral votes to 232; he lost the popular vote by more than seven million votes. Early life and business career Trump was the fourth of five children of Frederick (Fred) Christ Trump, a successful real estate developer, and Mary MacLeod. Donald’s eldest sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, eventually served as a U.S. district court judge (1983–99) and later as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit until her retirement in 2011. His elder brother, Frederick, Jr. (Freddy), worked briefly for his father’s business before becoming an airline pilot in the 1960s. Freddy’s alcoholism led to his early death in 1981, at the age of 43. Donald Trump Donald Trump Donald Trump speaking in front of Trump Tower, New York City, August 2008. Š Paul Hakimata—Phakimata/Dreamstime.com The White House South portico, Washington, D.C., USA. Photo circa 2005. White House history. BRITANNICA QUIZ U.S. Presidential Code Names Quiz Every U.S. president is assigned a code name by the Secret Service. This quiz will show you a code name along with two presidents’ names. Can you pick the right one? Beginning in the late 1920s, Fred Trump built hundreds of single-family houses and rowhouses in the Queens and Brooklyn boroughs of New York City, and from the late 1940s he built thousands of apartment units, mostly in Brooklyn, using federal loan guarantees designed to stimulate the construction of affordable housing. During World War II he also built federally backed housing for naval personnel and shipyard workers in Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1954 Fred was investigated by the Senate Banking Committee for allegedly abusing the loan-guarantee program by deliberately overestimating the costs of his construction projects to secure larger loans from commercial banks, enabling him to keep the difference between the loan amounts and his actual construction costs. In testimony before the Senate committee in 1954, Fred admitted that he had built the Beach Haven apartment complex in Brooklyn for $3.7 million less than the amount of his government-insured loan. Although he was not charged with any crime, he was thereafter unable to obtain federal loan guarantees. A decade later a New York state investigation found that Fred had used his profit on a state-insured construction loan to build a shopping centre that was entirely his own property. He eventually returned $1.2 million to the state but was thereafter unable to obtain state loan guarantees for residential projects in the Coney Island area of Brooklyn. Donald Trump attended New York Military Academy (1959–64), a private boarding school; Fordham University in the Bronx (1964–66); and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and Commerce (1966–68), where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics. In 1968, during the Vietnam War, he secured a diagnosis of bone spurs, which qualified him for a medical exemption from the military draft (he had earlier received four draft deferments for education). Upon his graduation Trump began working full-time for his father’s business, helping to manage its holdings of rental housing, then estimated at between 10,000 and 22,000 units. In 1974 he became president of a conglomeration of Trump-owned corporations and partnerships, which he later named the Trump Organization. key events in the life of Donald Trump key events in the life of Donald Trump Key events in the life of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump. EncyclopĂŚdia Britannica, Inc. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Trump-owned housing developments in New York City, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Norfolk, Virginia, were the target of several complaints of racial discrimination against African Americans and other minority groups. In 1973 Fred and Donald Trump, along with their company, were sued by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act (1968) in the operation of 39 apartment buildings in New York City. The Trumps initially countersued the Justice Department for $100 million, alleging harm to their reputations. The suit was settled two years later under an agreement that did not require the Trumps to admit guilt. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, Donald Trump greatly expanded his father’s business by investing in luxury hotels and residential properties and by shifting its geographic focus to Manhattan and later to Atlantic City, New Jersey. In doing so, he relied heavily on loans, gifts, and other financial assistance from his father, as well as on his father’s political connections in New York City. In 1976 he purchased the decrepit Commodore Hotel near Grand Central Station under a complex profit-sharing agreement with the city that included a 40-year property tax abatement, the first such tax break granted to a commercial property in New York City. Relying on a construction loan guaranteed by his father and the Hyatt Corporation, which became a partner in the project, Trump refurbished the building and reopened it in 1980 as the 1,400-room Grand Hyatt Hotel. In 1983 he opened Trump Tower, an office, retail, and residential complex constructed in partnership with the Equitable Life Assurance Company. The 58-story building on 56th Street and Fifth Avenue eventually contained Trump’s Manhattan residence and the headquarters of the Trump Organization. Other Manhattan properties developed by Trump during the 1980s included the Trump Plaza residential cooperative (1984), the Trump Parc luxury condominium complex (1986), and the 19-story Plaza Hotel (1988), a historic landmark for which Trump paid more than $400 million. In the 1980s Trump invested heavily in the casino business in Atlantic City, where his properties eventually included Harrah’s at Trump Plaza (1984, later renamed Trump Plaza), Trump’s Castle Casino Resort (1985), and the Trump Taj Mahal (1990), then the largest casino in the world. During that period Trump also purchased the New Jersey Generals, a team in the short-lived U.S. Football League; Mar-a-Lago, a 118-room mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, built in the 1920s by the cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post; a 282-foot yacht, then the world’s second largest, which he named the Trump Princess; and an East Coast air-shuttle service, which he called Trump Shuttle. In 1977 Trump married Ivana ZelníčkovĂĄ Winklmayr, a Czech model, with whom he had three children—Donald, Jr., Ivanka, and Eric—before the couple divorced in 1992. Their married life, as well as Trump’s business affairs, were a staple of the tabloid press in New York City during the 1980s. Trump married the American actress Marla Maples after she gave birth to Trump’s fourth child, Tiffany, in 1993. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1999. In 2005 Trump married the Slovene model Melania Knauss, and their son, Barron, was born the following year. Melania Trump became only the second foreign-born first lady of the United States upon Trump’s inauguration as president in 2017. When the U.S. economy fell into recession in 1990, many of Trump’s businesses suffered, and he soon had trouble making payments on his approximately $5 billion debt, some $900 million of which he had personally guaranteed. Under a restructuring agreement with several banks, Trump was forced to surrender his airline, which was taken over by US Airways in 1992; to sell the Trump Princess; to take out second or third mortgages on nearly all of his properties and to reduce his ownership stakes in them; and to commit himself to living on a personal budget of $450,000 a year. Despite those measures, the Trump Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in 1991, and two other casinos owned by Trump, as well as his Plaza Hotel in New York City, went bankrupt in 1992. Following those setbacks, most major banks refused to do any further business with him. Estimates of Trump’s net worth during this period ranged from $1.7 billion to minus $900 million. Trump’s fortunes rebounded with the stronger economy of the later 1990s and with the decision of the Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG to establish a presence in the U.S. commercial real estate market. Deutsche Bank extended hundreds of millions of dollars in credit to Trump in the late 1990s and the 2000s for projects including Trump World Tower (2001) in New York and Trump International Hotel and Tower (2009) in Chicago. In the early 1990s Trump had floated a plan to his creditors to convert his Mar-a-Lago estate into a luxury housing development consisting of several smaller mansions, but local opposition led him instead to turn it into a private club, which was opened in 1995. In 1996 Trump partnered with the NBC television network to purchase the Miss Universe Organization, which produced the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA beauty pageants. Trump’s casino businesses continued to struggle, however: in 2004 his company Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy after several of its properties accumulated unmanageable debt, and the same company, renamed Trump Entertainment Resorts, went bankrupt again in 2009. Beginning in the mid-2000s Trump enjoyed an enormous financial windfall from the success of The Apprentice, a reality television series in which he starred that directly earned him nearly $200 million over a 16-year period. The Emmy-nominated show, in each episode of which Trump “fired” one or more contestants competing for a lucrative one-year contract as a Trump employee, further enhanced his reputation as a shrewd businessman and self-made billionaire. In 2008 the show was revamped as The Celebrity Apprentice, which featured news makers and entertainers as contestants. Trump marketed his name as a brand in numerous other business ventures including Trump Financial, a mortgage company, and the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative (formerly Trump University), an online education company focusing on real-estate investment and entrepreneurialism. The latter firm, which ceased operating in 2011, was the target of class-action lawsuits by former students and a separate action by the attorney general of New York state, alleging fraud. After initially denying the allegations, Trump settled the lawsuits for $25 million in November 2016. In 2019, more than two years into his presidency, Trump agreed to pay $2 million in damages and to admit guilt to settle another lawsuit by the attorney general of New York that had accused him of illegally using assets from his charity, the Trump Foundation, to fund his 2016 presidential campaign. As part of the settlement, the Trump Foundation was dissolved. In 2018 The New York Times published a lengthy investigative report that documented how Fred Trump had regularly transferred vast sums of money, ultimately amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, to his children by means of strategies that involved tax, securities, and real-estate fraud, as well as by legal means. According to the report, Donald was the main beneficiary of the transfers, having received the equivalent (in 2018 dollars) of $413 million by the early 2000s. According to a later report by the Times, based on data from tax returns filed by Trump during an 18-year period starting in 2000, Trump paid no federal taxes in 11 years and only $750 in each of two years, 2016 and 2017. Trump was able to reduce his tax obligations to levels significantly below the average for the wealthiest Americans by claiming massive losses on many of his businesses; by deducting as business expenses costs associated with his residences and his personal aircraft; and by receiving, on the basis of business losses, a tentative refund from the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) of nearly $73 million, which more than covered the federal taxes Trump had paid on income he received from The Apprentice in 2005–08. The refund became the subject of an IRS audit and a legally mandated review by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Trump was credited as coauthor of a number of books on entrepreneurship and his business career, including Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987), Trump: The Art of the Comeback (1997), Why We Want You to Be Rich (2006), Trump 101: The Way to Success (2006), and Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success (2008). 2018 Russia–United States summit Vladimir Putin & Donald Trump in Helsinki, 16 July 2018 (2).jpg Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during the summit Host country  Finland[1] Date July 16, 2018[1] Venue(s) Presidential Palace Cities Helsinki Participants United States Donald Trump Russia Vladimir Putin Website um.fi/helsinki2018 Portrait of Donald Trump This article is part of a series about Donald Trump Political positionsElectoral historyPublic image Business and personal 45th president of the United States Presidency timelineTransitionInauguration Tenure Executive actions proclamationspardonsTrips internationalNorth Korea summits SingaporeHanoiDMZRiyadh summitHelsinki summitShutdowns January 20182018–2019PollsLawsuitsProtests federal law enforcement deploymentSt. John's Church photo opSocial mediaVeracity of statementsKillings al-BaghdadiSoleimaniTrumpismTikTok controversy Policies Economy tax cutstariffsChina trade warfarmer bailoutsEnvironment Paris withdrawalForeign policy America FirstSaudi Arabia arms dealIran nuclear deal withdrawalGulf crisisJerusalemGolan HeightsPalestine peace planAbraham AccordsUSMCADoha AgreementImmigration travel banwallfamily separationmigrant detentionstroop deploymentsnational emergencyInfrastructureSocial issues First Step ActcannabisSpace Appointments Cabinet formationAmbassadorsFederal judges GorsuchKavanaughBarrettSupreme Court candidatesExecutivesU.S. Attorneys Presidential campaigns Impeachments EffortsFirst impeachment Trump–Ukraine scandalHouse inquirySenate trialSecond impeachment Capitol attackSenate trial Interactions involving Russia pandemic TaskforceCommunicationGovernment response Stimulus bills CARES ActConsolidated Appropriations Act, 2021Operation Warp SpeedWhite House outbreakInterference with science agencies Donald Trump's signature Seal of the President of the United States vte Владимир Путин (16-09-2021) (cropped).jpg This article is part of a series about Vladimir Putin President of Russia Incumbent Political careerPublic imagePets Policies Domestic policy legislation and programsmilitary reformconstitutional reformnational championspriority projectsstabilization fundForeign policyPutin's Plan Elections Electoral history2000 campaign2004 campaign2012 campaign2018 campaignPutinTeam Premiership First CabinetSecond Cabinet Presidency Inaugurations 1st2nd3rd4thInternational tripsPolitical groupsSpeeches Munich 2007Crimea 2014Valdai 20142020 Address to the Federal AssemblySummits LjubljanaBratislavaHelsinkiGeneva Vladimir Putin's signature Emblem of the President of Russia.svg Media gallery vte The 2018 Russia–United States summit (also known as the Trump–Putin summit) was a summit meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki, Finland. The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs officially titled the summit as the #HELSINKI2018 Meeting and it was hosted by the President of Finland Sauli NiinistĂś. During a post-summit joint press conference with Putin, Trump did not accept Russian interference was part of the 2016 U.S. elections. Trump's omissions provoked an uproar across the political spectrum, including from some of his usual allies. One day later, Trump amended part of his remarks, contending that he had misspoken due to an incorrectly perceived "double-negative".[2] Although the proceedings of the summit were orderly and diplomatic, both Trump and Putin were received poorly by both sides of the political spectrum in the United States, with some commentators saying that the summit became the event where Putin "cemented his status, and the status of his country, as public enemy #1 in America," ushering in the lowest point of Russia–United States relations since the early 1980s.[3] History President Vladimir Putin and NSC Advisor John R. Bolton meeting at the Kremlin, Moscow, on June 27, 2018, to discuss the summit Helsinki previously served as the location for the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, following a series of meetings intended to reduce tensions between the Western and Soviet blocs during the Cold War.[4] The U.S. National Security Advisor John R. Bolton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 27, 2018, to discuss the details of the summit and other bilateral issues.[5] On June 28, the location of the summit was announced by the White House and the Kremlin to be Helsinki.[6] Background The Presidential Palace in Helsinki, the venue of the summit The summit was officially called the #HELSINKI2018 Meeting by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was hosted by the President of Finland Sauli NiinistĂś.[7] The summit took place in the Presidential Palace and marked the first official meeting between the leaders after previous unofficial talks between Trump and Putin at the G20 Hamburg and APEC Vietnam summits held in 2017.[8] Topics Trump announced to be discussed at the summit included the situations in Syria and Ukraine.[9][10] The United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met his Russian and Finnish counterparts Sergey Lavrov and Timo Soini.[11] NiinistĂś held bilateral meetings with both presidents on the day of the summit. That morning, NiinistĂś and Finnish First Lady Jenni Haukio welcomed Trump and U.S. First Lady Melania Trump at their main official residence in Mäntyniemi. During the presidents' meeting, the two women met for a joint breakfast.[12] The #HELSINKI2018 meeting began at the Presidential Palace after midday (at approximately 1 pm) with NiinistĂś officially welcoming Putin, followed by Trump. The bilateral discussions between the American and Russian presidents took place in the Presidential Palace's Gothic Hall; Trump and Putin met with only interpreters present.[13] Their meeting was followed by a working lunch including additional officials in the Hall of Mirrors.[14] NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said they welcomed Trump's planned meeting with Vladimir Putin.[15] On July 13, 2018, three days before the summit, Rod Rosenstein, the United States Deputy Attorney General, announced indictments of twelve Russian GRU officers for their efforts in the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak, through the establishment of false identities as DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, as well as charges of money laundering using bitcoin. The timing of these indictments led to closer scrutiny of the upcoming meeting and pressure for Trump to discuss election meddling with Putin.[16] Bloomberg News reported the day after the summit that Trump permitted the indictments to be announced prior to the summit hoping it would strengthen his position in negotiations with Putin.[17] Two days before the scheduled meeting, a group of top Senate Democrats urged Trump to not meet with Putin one-on-one. Signers of a letter advising him not to meet alone with Putin included Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Minority Whip Dick Durbin, and the top Democrats on the Senate Intelligence (Mark Warner), Foreign Relations (Bob Menendez), Judiciary (Dianne Feinstein), Armed Services (Jack Reed), Appropriations (Patrick Leahy), and Banking (Sherrod Brown) committees.[18][19] Controversial remarks During an interview on the eve of the summit with CBS News, Trump was asked who America's biggest foe is. He said Russia is "a foe in certain aspects" and called the European Union the biggest trade foe of the United States.[20] Trump tweeted on the morning of the summit that the relationship between Russia and the U.S. has "never been worse".[21] He blamed this on "foolishness and stupidity" on the part of the U.S., and referenced the ongoing Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, calling it a "witchhunt". The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs retweeted Trump's message, adding "We agree".[22] Trump also indicated his inclination to accept Putin's denial of Russian interference, saying "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be."[23] Demonstrations According to the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle, more than 10 demonstrations were planned for the summit.[24] On Sunday 15 July, about 2,500 protesters gathered for the "Helsinki Calling" pro-human rights demonstration at the Helsinki Senate Square.[25][26] Simultaneously, the youth section of the nationalist Finns Party staged a pro-Trump rally. The "Welcome Trump" event gathered a crowd of 50 people including Finns Party youth and Soldiers of Odin members.[26][27] More demonstrations were planned for Monday 16 July, including the "Stop Putin" and "Helsinki against Trump and Putin" rallies and protests for women's rights, Afghanistan and against Russophobia.[24] The youth section of the right-wing National Coalition Party said they would hold a demonstration against President Trump's trade policy and Russia's annexation of Crimea.[24] Delegations U.S. delegation Talks between U.S. delegation headed by Trump and Russian delegation headed by Putin at the summit in Helsinki, July 16, 2018 President of the United States Donald Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo National Security Advisor John R. Bolton White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman Jr. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders White House Deputy Chief of Staff Zachary Fuentes Advisor to the President Fiona Hill Russian delegation President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov Foreign Affairs Advisor to the President Yuri Ushakov[28] Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov Private meeting Trump and Putin met privately for two hours, without aides or note-takers, accompanied only by their respective interpreters. The meeting had been scheduled for 90 minutes but lasted two hours.[28][29] The private meeting was followed by a working lunch that included senior advisors.[29] Topics discussed No agenda was published for their discussion, and no communique was issued afterward. Some issues were touched on at the press conference. In the following days Russia issued multiple statements about what it said were agreements made at the summit, "shaping a narrative of the meeting with no confirmation or alternative account from the Trump administration."[30] In the press conference immediately following the meeting, both leaders described some of their positions. On the question of the Syrian civil war, Trump wanted Iranian troops to leave Syria, while Putin would not commit to their departure. Both agreed that Iranian troops should be kept away from the Israel-Syria border, with Trump noting that "Creating safety for Israel is something both Putin and I would like to see very much." Trump said he is willing to help Syria with humanitarian aid, even if there is no wider peace settlement.[31] That may contradict the earlier Trump administration position that it will not provide reconstruction assistance to any part of Syria that remains under the control of Bashar al-Assad, whom Russia backs. The Russian ambassador to the U.S. later said that Syria had been the major topic of discussion, along with "the removal of the concerns that the United States has regarding the well-known claims about alleged interference in the elections". Four days after the meeting, a Russian military spokesman said Russia has sent formal proposals for a joint U.S.-Russian effort to reconstruct Syria and facilitate the return home of Syrian refugees.[30] In a Fox News interview the next day, Putin indicated that the two had agreed to disagree about Crimea. Putin said he wanted acceptance of the disputed 2014 referendum in which Crimeans voted to become part of Russia, and insisted that Ukraine must never become part of NATO. He said they had agreed to hold talks on extension of the START treaty, which expires in 2021, but he wants to see evidence that the U.S. has lived up to the terms of the treaty. He also wants to negotiate on the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Treaty.[31] The day after the meeting, a Russian military spokesman said that Russia is "ready for practical implementation of the agreements reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in the sphere of international security achieved at the Helsinki summit." His statement said the agreements include cooperation in Syria and discussions about extending the START Treaty.[32] No agreements were announced at the summit, and White House and Pentagon spokesmen said they were not aware of any new agreements.[33] A spokesman for the National Security Council said "As President Trump stated, the two sides agreed that their national security council staffs will follow up on the presidents' meetings, and these discussions are underway. There were no commitments to undertake any concrete action, beyond agreement that both sides should continue discussions." The spokesman said they are also reviewing suggestions by Putin for a "cyber-group" and an anti-terrorism group.[30] At a press conference four days after the summit, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated, "I’m not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in Helsinki," and ceded the podium to national security advisor John Bolton, who explained that the issue of election interference was discussed.[34] Despite this, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer remarked, "It is utterly amazing, utterly amazing, that no one knows what was said."[35] Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Representative Bill Pascrell called for Trump's interpreter, Marina Gross, to testify before Congress, while House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff called for her to testify to the Committee in closed session.[36][37][38] Press conference File:President Trump Holds a Joint Press Conference with the President of the Russian Federation.webm The press conference (English version, from White House) File:Press-konferentsiia po itogam peregovorov prezidento-HD.webm The press conference (Russian version from Kremlin.ru) After the private meeting and the working lunch, Trump and Putin gave a joint press conference. When Trump was asked whether he would condemn Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, he demurred, saying that Putin had denied it.[39] JONATHAN LEMIRE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: President Trump, you first. Just now, President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you sir is, who do you believe? My second question is would you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you want him to never do it again? TRUMP: So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why haven't they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee? I've been wondering that. I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know where is the server and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats, came to me and some others they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be. But I really do want to see the server but I have, I have confidence in both parties. [...] I have great confidence in my intelligence people but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today and what he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators, with respect to the 12 people. I think that's an incredible offer. Ok? Thank you.[39] During the press conference, Jeff Mason from Reuters asked whether Putin had wanted Donald Trump to win the 2016 presidential election and had he directed any of his officials to help him do that? Putin replied: "Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the US-Russia relationship back to normal." This contradicted a tweet sent by Trump in which he claimed: "I'm very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don't want Trump!" All reference to that exchange between Mason and the Russian leader was omitted from the official White House transcript.[40][41] Asked whether Russia possessed any compromising material on Trump, Putin laughed and talked about the number of businessmen who visit Russia, but did not give a direct answer. Trump commented that if any such material existed "it would have been out long ago".[42] Followup Reaction The hours immediately following the summit drew bipartisan criticism in the United States. Criticism focused on Trump's perceived acceptance of Putin's denial of involvement in Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, which contradicted the findings of the United States Intelligence Community, and stood in pointed contrast to the indictment of twelve Russian GRU agents just three days earlier in the ongoing Special Counsel investigation:[39] U.S. media reaction was almost universally negative, even from many commentators on Fox News who usually supported the president.[43] International news coverage of the summit was mostly negative in Europe, triumphant in Russia, and muted in China.[44] Democrats universally condemned Trump's performance. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called it a "sad day for America."[45] Senate Democrats led by Jeanne Shaheen called for American interpreter Marina Gross, who sat in on the private meeting with Putin, to be questioned before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Shaheen added, if the administration is to exert executive privilege, "we need to find another way to get the information."[46] Senator Chuck Schumer said "We need hearings as soon as possible", with testimony from members of Trump's national security team present during the Helsinki summit, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo."[47][48] NBC News reported that "key senators were preparing to grill" Pompeo "on Russia and North Korea" when he briefs them and that "tempers flared" during a July 18, 2018 Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing at which this was discussed. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated "If the administration is unwilling to consult with this committee in a meaningful fashion on vital national security issues, then we must consider all appropriate responses." Republican committee chairman Bob Corker stated, "On challenging what happened at NATO, what happened at Helsinki, I will take a backseat to no one in this body," after previously stating that "the dam has broken."[49][50] Many Republicans in Congress strongly criticized Trump as well. Senator Bob Corker claimed Trump "made us look like a pushover", Senator Ben Sasse called Trump's remarks "bizarre and flat-out wrong", while Senator Tim Scott wondered if "day was a step backwards".[51] Others including Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell reaffirmed support for the U.S. intelligence community without directly condemning Trump.[51] Newt Gingrich, a longtime Trump supporter, said Trump's statements about the U.S. intelligence community were "the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected — immediately".[52] Senator John McCain and former Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican nominees for president in 2008 and 2012, respectively, both strongly criticized Trump.[53] Romney said Trump's siding with Putin rather than U.S. intelligence agencies was "disgraceful and detrimental to our democratic principles", while McCain called the summit "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory."[54] Republican Senator Rand Paul was the lone voice in the Senate to support Trump in the matter,[55] saying that Trump should be "lauded and not belittled" for being "willing to meet with adversaries to try to prevent us from having World War 3."[56] A few Republican members of the House of Representatives also made supportive comments.[57] Shortly after the summit concluded, CNN reported that Trump's "stunned aides wonder what went wrong" and "openly admitted they don't know how to respond to questions," quoting one official involved with the summit as saying "this was not the plan."[58] The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal later reported that there was extensive planning before the summit to confront Putin, with one official saying the plan was for Trump to "shove [the Mueller indictments of 12 Russians] in Putin's face and look strong doing it" during both the private meeting and public press conference, but that Trump "did the exact opposite."[59][60] The New York Times, Time magazine, and The New Yorker magazine mocked Trump and the summit. The New York Times' online opinion page displayed homoerotic imagery of Trump and Putin in an animated cartoon by Bill Plympton.[61] A morphed image of a Trump-Putin hybrid was published on the Time magazine cover.[62] The New Yorker magazine cover art displayed a parody of Trump's June 15, 2015 escalator announcement of his candidacy,[63] showing a dead and flattened Trump laid out face down, but giving the "thumbs-up" at the bottom of the escalator.[64][65] Television commentators presented criticism of Trump and the summit.[66] David Gergen, an advisor to four presidents including Ronald Reagan, stated "I've never heard an American president talk that way, but I think it's especially true that when he's with someone like Putin — who is a thug, a world-class thug — that he sides with him again and again against his own country's interests."[67] Fox & Friends, a morning program which Trump is known to regularly watch, was critical of Trump's performance, with co-host Brian Kilmeade speaking directly to the president, "I will say this to the president: when Newt Gingrich, when General Jack Keane, when Matt Schlapp say the president fell short and made our intelligence apparatus look bad, I think it's time to pay attention."[68] On MSNBC, Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks said that the Russian meddling attempts were as serious to her "as the Cuban Missile Crisis...or the 9/11 attack" and further stated that the summit will "live in infamy as much as" the Attack on Pearl Harbor or Kristallnacht.[66] Former national security advisor Susan Rice stated that the US-Russia summit was a bad mistake, citing many reasons, and that any future meeting would be premature.[69] Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, one of the founding editors of The Intercept, said that "90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons are in the hands of two countries—the United States and Russia—and having them speak and get along is much better than having them isolate one another and increase the risk of not just intentional conflict, but misperception and miscommunication, as well."[70] Trump viewed as being under Putin's influence The Trump–Russia dossier alleges that the Russians possess kompromat on Trump which can be used to blackmail him, and that the Kremlin promised him that the kompromat will not be used as long as he continues his cooperation with them.[71][72] Trump's actions at the Helsinki summit in 2018 "led many to conclude that Steele's report was more accurate than not.... Trump sided with the Russians over the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Moscow had waged an all-out attack on the 2016 election,... The joint news conference,.. cemented fears among some that Trump was in Putin's pocket and prompted bipartisan backlash."[73] At the joint news conference, when asked directly about the subject, Putin denied that he had any kompromat on Trump. Even though Trump was reportedly given a "gift from Putin" the weekend of the pageant, Putin argued "that he did not even know Trump was in Russia for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013 when, according to the Steele dossier, video of Trump was secretly recorded to blackmail him."[74] In reaction to Trump's actions at the summit, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke in the Senate: Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous and inexplicable behavior is the possibility — the very real possibility — that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump.[75] Several operatives, and lawyers in the U.S. intelligence community reacted strongly to Trump's performance at the summit. They described it as "subservien[ce] to Putin" and a "fervent defense of Russia's military and cyber aggression around the world, and its violation of international law in Ukraine" which they saw as "harmful to US interests". They also suggested that he was either a "Russian asset" or a "useful idiot" for Putin,[76] and that he looked like "Putin's puppet".[77] Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wondered "if Russians have something on Trump",[78] and former CIA director John O. Brennan, who has accused Trump of "treason", tweeted: "He is wholly in the pocket of Putin."[79] Former acting CIA director Michael Morell has called Trump "an unwitting agent of the Russian federation", and former CIA director Michael V. Hayden said Trump was a "useful fool" who is "manipulated by Moscow".[80] Trump's followup File:President Trump Meets with Members of Congress.webm Trump's statement on the 17th of July The next day, Trump, reading from a prepared statement, claimed that he had mistakenly used the word "would" when he had meant to say "wouldn't", acknowledging Russian attempts at meddling in the 2016 election but denying Trump-Russia collusion.[81] Trump paused reading his prepared statement to interject that the interference "Could be other people also. A lot of people out there."[82][83] In the past, Trump had questioned many times if Russia was responsible, and on several previous occasions when he did say Russia was responsible, he also said that other countries might also have meddled.[84] The American intelligence community has consistently concluded that Russia was responsible for the hacking,[85][86] with three intelligence agencies having "high confidence" that Russian interference was ordered by Putin himself.[87] Trump then suggested on Twitter that his critics would rather go to war with Russia than see him get along with Putin.[88] During an interview three days after the summit, Trump told CBS News that he holds the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, personally responsible for Russia's attempts at meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.[89] Trump asked his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, to invite Mr. Putin to Washington, to continue dialogue that began in Helsinki. In a tweet, Trump indicated he looked forward to a second meeting with Mr. Putin "so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed" in Helsinki.[90] Russian public opinion Survey results published by Levada-Center indicate that, as of July 2018, Russians increasingly viewed the United States positively following the presidential summit.[91] Possibility of Russia interrogating U.S. citizens During his joint press conference with Putin, Trump stated, "And what [Putin] did is an incredible offer; he offered to have the people working on the [Special Counsel investigation] come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 [Russians who were under indictment in America]. I think that's an incredible offer."[92] Trump did not mention the quid pro quo for Putin's offer, which was to have Russians interrogate 11 U.S. citizens. Two days later, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that Putin and Trump had discussed the possibility of Russian officials questioning Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, as well as Putin critic Bill Browder and others, in exchange for allowing investigators of the Special Counsel investigation to question twelve Russians who are under indictment in America. Sanders stated in a press conference, "The president will work with his team and we'll let you know if there's an announcement on that front."[93][94] State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called the Russian request "absolutely absurd."[94] Critics assailed Trump for even considering subjecting a former American diplomat to questioning by a hostile foreign power.[95] As the Republican-controlled Senate prepared to vote on a resolution opposing the Putin proposal,[96][97][98] Sanders stated that Trump "disagrees" with the Putin proposal.[99] The Senate approved the non-binding "sense of the Senate" resolution, which stated that no current or former diplomat or other government employee should be made available to the Russians for interrogation, on a 98–0 vote.[100] Gallery Vladimir Putin arrives in Finland.   Joint photo session (left to right): First Lady of the US Melania Trump, US President Donald Trump, President of Russia Vladimir Putin, President of Finland Sauli NiinistĂś and First Lady of Finland Jenni Haukio.   Putin gifts Trump a Telstar Mechta, the official match ball for the knockout stage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.   Advertisement in downtown Helsinki, with a message aimed at President Putin, in light of perceived lack of press freedom in Russia. See also flag Finland portal flag Russia portal flag United States portal DĂŠtente Russia–United States relations 2021 Russia–United States summit List of Russia–United States summits List of Soviet Union–United States summits Presidency of Donald Trump#Foreign affairs Russia under Vladimir Putin References  Kevin, Liptak (28 June 2018). "Trump casts doubt on Russian election meddling ahead of Putin summit". CNN. Archived from the original on 7 November 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2018.  Landler, Mark; Sullivan, Eileen (18 July 2018). "Trump Says He Laid Down the Law in His Latest Account of His Meeting With Putin". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 December 2018. Retrieved 4 December 2018.  Swan, Jonathan; Allen, Mike (July 17, 2018). "Trump officials embarrassed by Putin show". Axios. Archived from the original on 2020-07-24. Retrieved 2020-04-14.  King, Alexandra (2018-07-01). 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"Full English transcript and video clips of joint press conference of Trump and Putin". 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