Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 50. Chapters: Boris Yeltsin, Cheget, Decree of the President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, Impeachment in Russia, List of presidents of Russia, Martial law in Russia, Vladimir Putin. Excerpt: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: IPA: ( listen); born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician who has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008, and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin was also previously the Chairman of United Russia. For sixteen years Putin was an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election and was re-elected in 2004. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008. Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election and appointed Putin as Prime Minister, beginning a period of so-called "tandemocracy." In September 2011, following a change in the law, Putin announced that he would seek a third, non-consecutive term as President in the 2012 presidential election, an announcement which led to large-scale protests in many Russian cities. He won the election in March 2012 and will serve an increased, six-year term. Putin has been widely credited for overseeing a return of political stability and economic progress to Russia, ending the crisis of the 1990s. During Putin's first premiership and presidency (1999-2008), real incomes increased by a factor of 2.5, real wages more than tripled; unemployment and poverty...