Russian statesman. A member of the KGB, he spent five years in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) from the year 1985. In 1991 he became the international affairs advisor to the Mayor of Saint Petersburg, and then became one of the close advisors to the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, who in 1998 nominated him the Director of the FSS (Federal Security Service, the body which succeeded the KGB), and then, one year later, the President of his government.
President of the Russian Federation from December 31, 1999, to May 7, 2008, he carried out a policy of reforms marked by a recovery of the national economy and an institutional politics geared towards a concentration of Presidential powers.
In 2008 the Constitution forbade him a third consecutive Presidential mandate and he supported his government’s Vice-President, Dimitri Medvedev, who, once elected, made him the government’s President. He subsequently became the leader of the political party, ‘United Russia.’ It was under this party’s flag that he was once again elected President of the Russian Federation in March, 2012.