Key dates in President Vladimir Putin's life: 1952 - 2020
Birth
October 7, 1952: Putin was born into a working-class family in Leningrad, now called Saint Petersburg.
Security service head
July 1998: Named head of the FSB security service. It was the successor to the KGB which he joined in 1975.
Boris Yeltsin's prime minister
August 1999: He was appointed Boris Yeltsin's prime minister and in October of that year ordered the launch of a second war to crush rebels in Chechnya.
Became president
December 1999: He took over as president when Yeltsin resigned, and was officially elected in March 2000. He was re-elected four years later.
Stepped down
May 2008: He stepped down at the end of his second term as constitutionally required and handed power to his prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, taking the post himself.
Returns as President
Returns as president with Medvedev as his prime minister in May 2012
Annexes Crimea
March 2014: Putin's Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea sparking the worst diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
Military support to Syria
September 2015: Putin began military support to Syria's Assad government much to the discontent of Western powers.
Re-elected president
March 2018: Re-elected president for a fourth term ending in 2024.
Mass protests
July 2019: Start of rolling mass protests calling for free and fair local elections.
Proposes constitutional reforms
January 2020: Proposes constitutional reforms that prompted Medvedev and his government to resign.
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