What happened in Putin's twenty-five years?

 Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Islamabad (UrduPoint News Today/ Pakistan Point News - DW Urdu - 01 January 2025) Russian President Putin came to power twenty-five years ago on August 9, 1999. He has been in power since then and it is not known how long his political career will last.

Former Soviet and Russian political leader Boris Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin as the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation on August 9, 1999.

Boris Yeltsin, who was appointed as the President at that time, probably did not know that Putin’s rule would be so long.

Former Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister on August 9, 1999, and on December 31 of the same year, the ailing Boris Yeltsin suddenly announced his resignation from the post of President and made Putin the caretaker President.

While assuming the new position, Putin had vowed that Russia would remain a ‘great power’ around the world.

Born on October 7, 1952, Putin has come of age. Critics say his grip on Russia is so strong that he is unlikely to face a political challenge in the near future.

Putin is the longest-serving leader since Soviet political and revolutionary leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin led the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1954.

Only his death could remove him from power. Stalin was 74 years old at the time of his death.

The different faces of Putin

However, Putin has changed many faces to reach this path. At the beginning of his rule, Western countries probably did not doubt that he could also emerge as a 'warlord'.

Former US President George W. Bush said after meeting Putin in Slovenia in 2001, "I found him very straightforward and trustworthy.

We had a very good conversation. They want the best interests of their country.”

Speaking to the German parliament in September 2001, Putin offered the EU countries a security partnership with Russia. He questioned the role of the US, the leading power in NATO, but did not rule out NATO membership and membership in the EU.

The EU and Russia had also agreed on a number of cooperation programmes and initiatives aimed at establishing a ‘strategic partnership’. NATO opened an office in Moscow and Russia announced the establishment of a permanent mission to the military alliance in Brussels.

A NATO-Russia Council was established to discuss strategic issues, including the decision by several countries in Central and Eastern Europe to join the alliance.

Russia also benefited financially from being a major supplier of oil and gas to the EU.

Vladimir Putin 'flawless democrat'

In 2004, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder described Putin as a 'flawless democrat' politician, despite evidence that Putin was pressuring the local opposition and the press.

After leaving office, Schröder was given lucrative positions in Russian state-owned energy companies.

At the 2006 Munich Security Conference, Putin significantly changed his diplomatic approach. He said that the United States and the European Union did not accept Russia as a great power and that NATO was expanding to include Central and Eastern European countries.

Putin called this development a violation of the assurance that NATO would not build up forces near Russia's borders. In fact, Russia had agreed to this expansion of NATO in 1997 with the signing of the NATO-Russia Foundation Act.

Under the pretext of doing so, Russia scrapped arms reduction agreements, and Moscow sharply criticized the US missile defense system, which had already been planned.

At its April 2008 summit, NATO promised Ukraine and Georgia that they would be allowed to join the alliance. This development was deeply unsettling to Putin.

In August 2008, Putin demonstrated Russian military might by intervening in a conflict in Georgia, and after a short war brought the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia under Moscow’s control.

The European Commission continued to discuss with Russia until 2013 its long-term vision of establishing a “common economic and humanitarian space,” stretching “from Lisbon to Vladivostok.”

Putin is a multi-front warlord

In 2014, a popular revolution forced Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to step down, after which Putin invaded Ukraine.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in violation of international law and took control of parts of eastern Ukraine with the help of pro-Kremlin separatists.

The development prompted the United States and the European Union to impose sanctions on Russia and attempt to mediate. The Minsk agreements, brokered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, raised hopes for peace.

However, this never happened.

EU officials have also warned that Putin is rapidly becoming an autocrat. In 2021, the European Commission also noted the deterioration in EU-Russia relations, but the European bloc has not compromised with Moscow over energy imports.

Shortly after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, US President Joe Biden called Putin a “war criminal, a murderous dictator and a real thug”.

Since then, NATO has declared Putin’s Russia “the most significant and direct threat to the security of its allies and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region”.

The EU has imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Russia and has stepped up efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

However, almost three years after the war in Ukraine began, the EU has not fully achieved this goal.

The EU still imports the bulk of its liquefied natural gas from Russia. Trade has shrunk, but many EU companies are still doing business in Russia because the food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries have not been affected by the sanctions.

Twenty-five years after Putin took power, NATO is bracing itself for a new arms race. The alliance's primary mission is now to defend itself against Russian aggression.