Do we like Vladimir Putin?
Our score: 0 out of 10. Laws against LGBTQ+ people were brought in under his presidency, and the war he launched has drawn UN findings and an ICC warrant, with no real good to set against it.
Putin was born in Leningrad on 7 October 1952, and two of his brothers died before he was born, one of them during the Nazi siege. He studied law, joined the KGB in 1975, and was posted to Dresden in 1985 where he recruited East Germans to spy on the West. Back in Leningrad he became the fixer for his old law professor, the city's mayor, then moved to Moscow in 1996 and ran the FSB by 1998. Within a year Boris Yeltsin had made him acting prime minister, and he was elected president in March 2000.
The constitution barred a third consecutive term, so in 2008 Dmitry Medvedev became president and Putin became prime minister, and the Sky News profile suggests power never really changed hands. Putin was back as president in 2012 in a vote marred by fraud allegations, and won again in March 2024. Russia's electoral chief said almost 65 million people voted for him, but Novaya Gazeta alleged at least 31.6 million of his votes were falsified, and the monitor Golos said the Kremlin had “imitated” freedom of choice.
Then there's the war. A UN commission of inquiry found in March 2023 that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine, including attacks on energy infrastructure and the forced transfer of children to Russia. The same week the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the alleged unlawful deportation of children. Russia doesn't recognise the court and calls the children's centres humanitarian projects for orphans traumatised by war.
Then there's Alexei Navalny, Putin's best-known critic, who died in prison in February 2024. Prison officials said he felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness, and the Kremlin said it had no official information on the cause. His ally Ivan Zhdanov alleged he was murdered and blamed Putin, and his wife Yulia Navalnaya said she couldn't trust the official reports. No court has decided who, if anyone, is responsible, so that stays an allegation.
On the harm test, the record is plain. In 2021 he told the Valdai Club that teaching children gender can be changed was monstrous, and asked the West to “steer clear of our home.” Under his presidency Russia then extended its gay propaganda ban to all ages in November 2022, banned gender reassignment in July 2023, and in November 2023 its Supreme Court declared the international LGBT movement extremist. Amnesty called that ruling “shameful and absurd”, and an exiled trans rights leader said LGBTQ people were being used as scapegoats. I didn't read enough on his climate record to say more on the planet.
The latest chapter is a talks tango. Witkoff met him in St Petersburg on 21 October, Putin said Russia was in principle ready to resume US-mediated talks, and Zelenskyy said Ukraine would join a trilateral meeting. Two days later Putin said he wanted lasting agreements, not a ceasefire, and called eastern Ukraine “the territory of historical Russia.” The sides remain far apart and the last US-mediated talks were in February.