| Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born October 7, 1952, Leningrad, Russia) is the current President of the Russian Federation from May 7, 2000 till date (he became acting President on December 31, 1999 succeeding Boris Yeltsin till May 7, 2000 and was sworn in as President following the elections). He is supreme commander-in-chief of Armed Forces of Russian Federation and Head of Security Council of the Russian Federation.
In 2004, Vladimir Putin was re-elected for a second term as President, which expires in 2008. According to reports of Russian mass media, Vladimir Putin is the most popular politician in Russian Federation from 1999 (According to public opinion poll, support to Putin increased from 14% in 1999 to 79% in 2007).
In Duma 2007 elections, Putin heads the electoral roll of party “United Russia” (even though he is not the member); federal list of party consists of only Vladimir Putin. At VIII congress of party, having agreed to head the electoral roll, he stated that he is interested in becoming Prime Minister of Russian Federation after the expiry of second term as President.
Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952 in Saint Petersburg (earlier Leningrad). According to his biography, in his youth Putin was eager to emulate the intelligence officer characters played on the Soviet screen and had a dream to work in State Security Departments. Putin’s father, Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin also served in Navy during Second World War and was a worker in a factory. Mother, Maria Ivanovna Shelomova was also a factory worker and survived the siege of Leningrad. Parents of Vladimir Putin were christened in Turginovo Tversky region in 1911. Vladimir Putin is the third son in the family – two elder brothers were born in the mid-1930s died early in childhood. Working family lived in a shared apartment in Leningrad.
In 1970, Putin got admission into International Branch of the Law Department of the Leningrad State University named after Zhdanova (LSU). In Leningrad State University, Putin was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (he never resigned from the membership till the dissolution of Communist Party in 1991. In 1975, Putin graduated from the International Branch of the Law Department of the Leningrad State University (Anatoly Sobchak was one of Putin’s lecturers), Topic of the Diploma — «Principles of the most favorable nation in International law”.
Putin's foreign policy, on one hand, was continuation of Yeltsin’s policies, but at the same time, in many respects was focused on overcoming the negative tendencies, vested during reign of first president of Russian Federation. In June 2000, “Concept of foreign policy of Russian Federation” was approved by the decree of Vladimir Putin.
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After parliamentary elections in Russia this Sunday, President Vladimir Putin's party received over 70 percent of the seats in the new legislature. The party called United Russia is now in total control of the new Russian parliament. Ironically this hardly differs from one-party system, which Russian democracy is meant to fight. European election monitors called these elections unfair and see Putin as new a "tsar figure" who is idolized much like Lenin and Stalin.
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