On March 26, 2000, Putin became the president of Russia. For a quarter of a century, he has been an unchangeable leader. Today he rules like a dictator. Let's look back and follow how the former KGB officer expanded his power.
In fact, this is just a formality: on March 26, 2000, Vladimir Putin was confirmed in office in the presidential elections in Russia with 52.9% of the vote.
The result of the elections is predetermined. Ultimately, when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned from office on December 31, 1999, Putin, who had been prime minister since August 9, 1999, took over as president in accordance with the constitution.
Putin has been in power for a quarter of a century. He has developed his own strategy to become the autocratic and undisputed ruler of Russia - although in the period 2008-2012, the president of Russia was Dmitry Medvedev. Then Putin had to temporarily be prime minister, but in fact he has never allowed anyone else to be number one. During all these 25 years, Western politicians have come and gone. And Putin has remained.
Building the "strongest personal dictatorship"
During these 25 years, the Russian president has turned his country into "the strongest personalized (personal) dictatorship in the world", as the Russian political scientist Mikhail Komin puts it. "Russia is of course not North Korea – it is simply too big. But the attitude towards citizens is the same, and the state demands more and more loyalty from them."
As Komin pointed out to DW, this became possible because during his rule Putin has consistently weakened all of Russia's political institutions. "His goal from the very beginning was to restructure democracy in his favor. And today all power in the Russian state is concentrated in the hands of a single person – Vladimir Putin."
Control over the regions as a basis of power
It all started with the elimination of "regional autonomy", Komin recalls. He explains that one of the important political reforms in Putin's first term was the establishment of the so-called. representatives of the president in the regions – they were supposed to control regional policy. This is how the Kremlin created its own instrument of control in the regions - a basis for cementing power, Komin is convinced.
The Russian political scientist living in Finland, Grigory Nizhnikov, shares the same opinion. "When we remember Russia from the time of early Putin, we also remember the many autonomous centers of power - both constitutional and informal, such as the oligarchs. They all formed a counterweight to the Kremlin." Putin destroyed all this, centralized everything and subordinated the power system of Russia, Nizhnikov told DW.
However, this is not the only reason for the long rule of the Russian president, the expert believes. Since there have been enough events over the past 25 years that could be dangerous for Putin. Among them, according to Nizhnikov, are the protests in Moscow after the parliamentary elections in 2011; the threat of instability in Crimea after its annexation in 2014; the unrest following the disputed pension reform in 2018; the mass protests across Russia inspired by Navalny in the following years; the start of the war in Ukraine, accompanied by street protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
However, any resistance from the population was followed by even more severe repressions, and today there is no one who can stand up to Putin, Nizhnikov points out.
Controlling the courts and cracking down on the opposition
Another important factor in Putin's preservation of power is the deliberate weakening of the courts during his second term, notes Mikhail Komin. Judges loyal to the ruler were given more power than their other colleagues. "It even got to the point that former court clerks were given the chance to become judges. And so the courts lost their independence."
Added to this are the changes in the electoral system in favor of Putin and his "United Russia" party. "Now the ruling party dominates thanks to the system of suppressing the opposition, and not thanks to the social issues that played a role during Putin's first two terms," the expert says.
Instead of asserting himself against the democratic opposition, Putin created a kind of shadow cabinet around himself, believes Russian sociologist Alexander Bikbov. In this narrow circle, the president gathered people who shared his specific business interests. Their companies received large state orders and thus enriched themselves, Bikbov points out.
The manipulation of collective historical memory
At the same time, society was forced into an image of Russia according to which the state throughout its history has played an exclusively positive role. Everything negative was excluded, all conflicts from the past were erased, says Bikbov. He calls this "manipulation of collective historical memory", which also leads to the strengthening of Putin's power.
In this image, Russia is presented as a society with traditional values - a society in which conflict with the authorities is rejected, and unconditional loyalty to those in power is praised as a given.
All three experts - DW's interlocutors - agree that in the future these trends will only intensify and Putin will stay in power for a long time. "The problem is that there is no alternative candidate, nor is there a place for him. The last elections that Putin really won were those of 2004. Everything else was unfair," sums up Mikhail Komin. According to the expert, Putin will be re-elected after the end of his current term in 2030, and the duration of his rule can only be limited by his physical age.
Grigory Nizhnikov also defines as a disadvantage the fact that Russians do not see an alternative to Putin and are rather afraid of change. He notes that in Russia there has always been a need for a firm hand. "A strong leading figure has always had to make decisions and deal with problems. In extreme cases, Russians can afford to criticize the governors, but not the president, under the motto: if Putin knew about this, the problem would be solved immediately!". And this is an old Russian tradition.
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This material was first published on January 1, 2025 and updated on March 26, 2025.