• President Vladimir Putin began his fifth term on May 7, embarking on another six years as leader of Russia. 

• At a ceremony in the gilded Grand Kremlin Palace, Putin placed his hand on the Russian Constitution and vowed to defend it as a crowd of hand-picked dignitaries looked on.

• The United States, which said it did not consider his re-election free and fair, stayed away from the inauguration ceremony. Britain, Canada and most European Union nations also decided to boycott the swearing-in. 

Putin set to overtake Stalin as longest-serving leader

• Already in office for nearly a quarter-century and the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin, Putin’s new term doesn’t expire until 2030, when he will be constitutionally eligible to run again.

• Putin, in power as President or Prime Minister since 1999, begins his new mandate more than two years after he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

• Russian forces are gaining ground in Ukraine, deploying scorched-earth tactics as Kyiv grapples with shortages of men and ammunition.

• Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine that has become Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, Russia has been heavily sanctioned by the West and is turning to other regimes like China, Iran and North Korea for support.

• The question now is what the 71-year-old Putin will do over the course of another six years in the Kremlin, both at home and abroad.

• Putin enters his fifth term with practically no opposition inside the country.

• Laws have been enacted that threaten long prison terms for anyone who discredits the military. The Kremlin also targets independent media, rights groups, LGBTQ+ activists and others who don't hew to what Putin has emphasised as Russia’s traditional family values.

• His greatest political foe, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony in February. Other prominent critics have either been imprisoned or have fled the country, and even some of his opponents abroad fear for their security.

Putin first rose to power in 1999

• Vladimir Putin was born in Leningrad on October 7, 1952.

• In 1975, he graduated with a degree in law from Leningrad State University. He later earned a PhD in economics.

• After graduation, Putin was assigned to work in the KGB. From 1985 to 1990, he worked in East Germany.

• After returning to the Soviet Union in 1990, Putin worked in various roles in St. Petersburg and Moscow, including positions in the city government and the Presidential Executive Office. 

• He became Prime Minister in August 1999 and became acting President of Russia upon Boris Yeltsin’s resignation on December 31, 1999.

• Putin won the presidential election on March 26, 2000, and was re-elected to a second term on March 14, 2004. 

• In May 2008, barred by the constitution from running for a third consecutive term, Putin was  appointed Prime Minister by new President Dmitry Medvedev. 

• In March 2012 Putin was elected to a new presidential term, now six years long under constitutional changes he engineered. 

• He won another presidential term in 2018.

• In July 2020 a referendum approved constitutional changes proposed by Putin, which allows him to run for two more terms starting in 2024.

• In March 2024, Putin won the elections, cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.

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