Putin started his career in the KGB, the secret intelligence service of the former Soviet Union. He joined the KGB in 1975. When the Berlin wall fell in 1989, he was working as an undercover spy in East Germany. The Soviet Union was also collapsing, so he went back to the country.
It finally collapsed in December 1991. The collapse resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet state into 15 new countries、 including the new Russian federation, Ukraine, Belarus, and others. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia faced a lot of difficulties.
One of the biggest problems was economic collapse. The transition from a highly controlled communist economy to a free market threw the country's economy into turmoil, including hyperinflation and widespread unemployment.
Most of the citizens were forced to live in hardship. On the other hand, this economic chaos created a huge wealth gap between citizens.
During this time, state-owned assets were privatized, often at bargain prices. And there were a small group of businessmen who had connections to be able to acquire those assets. This led to the rise of individuals, called Oligarchs(ｵﾘｶﾞｰｸｽ）, who came to control vast sectors of the Russian economy, including energy, media, banking and other industries.
Getting back to the story of Putin. When Putin got back from East Germany, he got a job working for the mayor of Leningrad, the current St. Petersburg, and within a few years, he became deputy mayor. And it is believed that Putin used his position to give special treatment to his Oligarch friends. He helped them structure monopolies and regulate their competitors. Before long, he succeeded in building a support network of Oligarchs, crime bosses, and security officials and most of them were former KGB officers.
In August 1999, then president Boris Yeltsin appointed Putin to be prime minister. Yeltsin was motivated to reform the country from an authoritarian government system to democratic political and economic system. But Putin was concerned that Yeltsin would allow the US to dominate Russia and that NATO would expand alliances and threaten Russia. Just after he became a prime minister, there were a series of deadly bombings, killing more than 300 people in several Russian cities, including Moscow. He publicly claimed that the bombings were terrorism by Chechen separatist militants.
When he was appointed as a prime minister, he was relatively unknown in national politics. so his approval ratings at that point was just 2%, but this number jumped up to 45% after the bombings. Putin’s tough stance on Chechnya during this time helped solidify his image as a strong leader. But journalists uncovered evidence suggesting bombings could have been staged by Russian authorities, including Putin and his allies. They also argued that bombings provided a pretext for the Russian military to attack Chechnya and helped to boost Putin's popularity and played a role in his rise to the presidency.
But journalists and politicians who worked to find out the truth of the bombing later died under mysterious circumstances, including Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service and a prominent critic of Putin.
（財閥のコントロール）
Anyway, he finally became a president in 2000. He began to shape the Russian state to his vision. Experts say Putin was trying to remake Russia in the image of the KGB. In order to control everything, Putin surrounded himself with the most powerful elements in Russia. The first thing he did was to suppress the Oligarchs under his rule. Oligarchs are the billionaire Russians having strong connections with politics. So he controlled those in power, like, those who support Putin are rewarded, and those who don’t are eliminated.
（ジョージアとメドベージェフ）
In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, a former Soviet Republic. The Georgian government consistently took pro-Western policy and opposed Russia. In response, Russia has intervened in regional conflicts supporting pro-Russian separatists. And this invasion had drawn condemnation from all over the world. But in fact, Putin was not a president during that time. The Russian constitution says the president can only serve two consecutive terms, so he had appointed Medvedev(ﾒﾄﾞｳﾞｪﾃﾞｳﾞ） as a president.
But Putin had been critical about policies or decisions made by the government led by Medvedev, because he took a relatively pro-western stance but Putin remained paranoid especially about US intentions. And in 2012. Putin won the next election by a wide margin. And then in 2014, Putin annexed Crimea. The biggest reason for the annexation of Crimea was that it was geopolitically very important for Russia because it had an ice free port. But experts point out that Putin’s ambition to reclaim former Soviet Unions including Ukraine is based on his principle of nationalism and patriotism, which is also really appealing to most of the Russian people especially to the generations that experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union. And that’s why he is still supported by many people.
On the other hand, it's also clear that part of his high approval ratings is as a result of his control, especially over the media in the country, and Navalny was exactly a person who consistently fought against his power. When Putin first became president in Russia, police were sent into Russia’s independent media companies, charging their owners and getting the media under control of the government. Print newspapers and local televisions were also controlled in the same way.
Because of this, Putin’s action has effectively been hidden from the public. His regime has manipulated politics in various ways, sometimes controlling who could run for office, or getting someone arrested for fabricated charges, and even assassinating them.
And all of these powerful elements of Putin’s regime are tied with corruption. and Navalny was the person who found out evidence of the corruption of the Russian government.
In 2006, he revealed about corruption by posting straight to his blog to avoid censorship by the state media. According to his report, over 400 billion dollars were lost to corruption in Russia between 2000 and 2008. But because Putin controlled the media, these facts were hidden. He organized protests, ran for mayor of Moscow, and even tried running for president. But he had been arrested multiple times.
And in 2020, he was poisoned, falling ill while on a domestic flight, later it was revealed that the nerve agent Novichok, the same poison that killed Alexander Litvinenko was used. The assassination attempt failed at that time, but he eventually died under mysterious circumstances in February. There is a lot of speculation about his death.
