The man who helped Vladimir Putin to become a president

When did Putin come to power?

Vladimir Putin has been President of Russia since 2012, having previously occupied the role from 1999 until 2008. He was the country’s Prime Minister from 1999 to 2000, and then again between 2008 and 2012. Born in Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) in 1952, Putin was an intelligence officer before entering Russian politics. His grandfather, Spiridon Putin, worked as a personal cook for both Lenin and Stalin. In 1999, Putin was appointed as acting Prime Minister by the ailing and increasingly erratic President Boris Yeltsin, who resigned from his own post that December. Yeltsin made it clear that Putin was his preferred successor for the presidency.