Much of his early career was in the old KGB security service but in the late 1990s he was recruited to join the presidential administration and he was appointed prime minister months before being given the top job.

He has been president ever since 2000, apart from four years as prime minister from 2008-12 and even then he was widely seen as holding the reins of power.

Putin faced down rising opposition protests in 2011 and one-by-one critical voices have been silenced.

His opponents are now in exile, in jail or dead.

Putin is intensely private about his personal life, and divorced his wife Lyudmila in 2013 after 30 years of marriage.

They had two daughters, widely named as Maria Vorontsova, an academic and businesswoman, and Katerina Tikhonova, head of a research foundation.

Putin has also adopted a stridently nationalist course and appealed to memories of Soviet-era power to shore up domestic support.

The president presents himself as a strong leader who took Russia out of the economic, social and political crisis of the 1990s, and defends Russia's national interests, particularly against alleged Western hostility.

He unleashed Europe's biggest war since World War Two in February 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.