With tensions between Ukraine and Russia at breaking point, all eyes are on the man at the center of the crisis. Russian leader Vladimir Putin shows no sign of pulling Europe back from the brink, despite international condemnation and sanctions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin put the weapons of war on standby last April when he began deploying Russian troops to the Ukrainian border, for use at these moments.
In fact, Putin began to line up his weapons years ago: during the Russian war in Georgia, in August 2008; its occupation of Crimea in February and March 2014; and, its agitation (and semi-clandestine participation) in the civil war that same year in the Donbass region of Ukraine. However, the inattentive West chose to ignore those precursors.
This conflict is not the result of a Western policy to dismantle the Soviet Union, it was Russian politicians who disconnected the USSR. Neither is it about the expansion of NATO, which stopped expanding nearly two decades ago nor is it a question of an abnormally created state. Ukraine is just a rebellious Russian province that has no legitimate existence outside Russia, according to the Russian official narrative. Rather, this conflict is the product of a frustrated imperialist power facing the reality of national secession by Ukraine.
Ukraine gained its independence three decades ago, with an independent existence based on a distinct language and culture, and an identity shaped - like all national identities - through experience and choice. Thus, conflict and war are essentially the work of one man, Vladimir Putin, a president who, after 20 years in power, wants to make his final mark in Russian history.
In December 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigned from his position as the president of Russia and appointed Putin to replace him until the date of the official elections. In March 2000, Putin was elected in the first round with 53% of the total votes. At that time, Putin promised to carry out political and economic reforms. He restructured the government, launched a campaign of investigations into crimes related to the business dealings of Russian citizens in high-ranking positions, and continued the Russian army's military campaign in Chechnya.
In September 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States, Putin announced Russia's solidarity with the United States in its campaign against terrorism, but when the "American War on Terror" shifted to focus on the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Putin joined the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac in their opposition to the US plan.
Then in 2004 Putin was re-elected to the presidency and in April of the following year, he made a historic visit to Israel for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which was the first visit to Israel by a Russian president.
After that, Putin was unable to run for president in 2008 because he was restricted to the length of the presidential term according to the Russian constitution, but that year the presidential term was extended in the constitution from four years to six. When his colleague Dmitry Medvedev succeeded in the presidential elections in March 2008, Putin was appointed prime minister immediately, which allowed Putin to maintain a key position of influence over the next four years.
In 1980, Putin met Lyudmila, who was working as a flight attendant at the time and later became his wife. They married in 1983 and had two daughters, Maria, born in 1985, and Yekaterina, born in 1986. In June of 2013, after approximately thirty years of marriage, the couple announced their intention to divorce and gave brief explanations for this, but they confirmed that the decision was made mutually by both parties. As for Vladimir Putin's religion, beliefs, and original sect, he was born into a Roman Orthodox Christian family.
Putin has dominated the world stage for more than two decades, but analysts and experts still find the Russian leader mystifying, so it is difficult to predict what happens next in Ukraine because Vladimir Putin himself has always been so unpredictable.
