Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is serving as the current President of Russia since 2012, previously being in the office from 1999 until 2008. He was also prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. As of 2021, Putin is the second-longest serving European president, after Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.
Putin is demonized by the Western press for his economic policies which threaten the Western global monopoly on the oil markets, as well as his foreign policy which is anti-imperialist in nature, defending the sovereignty of states (such as Syria[1][2], Venezuela[3]) against Western regime change efforts.
During his first tenure as president, the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, with GDP measured by purchasing power increasing by 72%, real incomes increased by a factor of 2.5, real wages more than tripled; unemployment and poverty more than halved and the Russians' self-assessed life satisfaction rose significantly.[4] This contributes to Western demonization, since the West had profited from the 1990's "Shock Therapy" of mass privatizations, which Putin has reversed.
In 2022, Putin has been demonized again in the west because of Russian intervention in the Donbass region.