Vladimir Putin

1952 – 20??

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has served as President or Prime Minister of Russia continuously since 1999, in a sequence engineered through constitutional changes that allowed him to remain in power past originally constitutionally-mandated term limits. He prosecuted the Second Chechen War from 1999 onwards, ordered the 2008 invasion of Georgia, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began February 24, 2022, which has produced documented Russian war crimes including the Bucha massacre and resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him on March 17, 2023, for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia; under his rule the murders, imprisonments, and exiles of opposition figures including Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, and Alexei Navalny have proceeded with conspicuous Kremlin involvement.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM