Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin 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. 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 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 and secretary of the Security Council, before being appointed as prime minister in August 1999.
