Ten Key Dates in the Life of Vladimir Putin

Ten key dates in the life of Vladimir Putin, who won a fourth term as Russian president in the elections on Sunday.

– October 7, 1952: born into a working-class family in the suburbs of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.

– 1998: appointed head of the FSB, the Russian secret service (formerly KGB).

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– 1999: Prime Minister during President Boris Yeltsin’s term.

– 2000: elected president in the first round, received a second term in 2004.

– 2008: as he could not serve more than two consecutive presidential terms, Putin entrusted the Kremlin to then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and took the head of the government.

– 2012: re-elected president in the first round, for a six-year term.

– 2013: announced his divorce from his wife Lyudmila, with whom he had been married since 1983 and with whom he has two daughters.

– 2014: annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

– 2015: provides military support to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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– December 6, 2017: announces candidacy for the March 2018 elections.