We Need to Talk About Putin: Why the West Gets Him Wrong

Putin’s Timeline

7 October 1952 — Born in Leningrad (now St Petersburg)

1964 — Begins to learn judo

1970–5 — Reads Law at Leningrad State University

1975 — Joins the KGB

1983 — Marries Lyudmila Putina (neé Shkrebneva)

1985–90 — Serves in Dresden, East Germany

1990 — Returns to Leningrad and moves onto the KGB’s ‘active reserve’ Assigned to work at Leningrad State University

1991–4 — Works in Leningrad Mayor’s Office (the name St Petersburg is restored in October 1991)

1991 — Formally leaves the KGB

1994–6 — First deputy mayor of St Petersburg

1996 — Moves to Moscow after the electoral defeat of Mayor Anatoly Sobchak

1996–7 — Deputy head of the Presidential Property Management Directorate

1997–8 — Deputy head, then first deputy head of the Presidential Administration

1998–9 — Director of the Federal Security Service

1999 — Prime minister

1999 — Start of the Second Chechen War

2000–4 — First presidential term

2003 — Arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky

2004–8 — Second presidential term

2008–12 — Serves as prime minister under Dmitry Medvedev

2008 — Invasion of Georgia

2011 — Medvedev nominates Putin for the presidency

2012–18 — Third presidential term

2011–12 — Bolotnaya Square protests against election rigging

2014 — Sochi Winter Olympics

Annexation of Crimea

Intervention in Donbas

2014 — Divorces Lyudmila

2015 — Intervention in Syria

2018–24? — Fourth presidential term