When is putin president

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Putin, who turns 69 this year, is currently serving his fourth presidential term, which is set to end in Vladimir Putin has signed a law that will allow him to run for the presidency twice more in his lifetime, potentially keeping him in office until If he remains in power until , his tenure will surpass even that of Joseph Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union for 29 years, making Putin the longest-serving Moscow leader since the Russian empire.

Officially, the new law limits Russian citizens to two presidential terms in their lifetime, outlawing the kind of shuffling between the presidency and the role of prime minister that Putin employed earlier in his career.

Analysts have said the law may not indicate that Putin wants to remain president, but simply wants to avoid being a lame duck and provoking a power struggle during his last term in office.

She described him as a workaholic. According to a Reuters news agency investigation, Mr Putin's younger daughter, Katerina, is thriving in academia , has a top administrative job at Moscow State University and performs in acrobatic rock 'n' roll competitions. The elder Putin daughter, Maria, is also an academic, specialising in endocrinology.

Reuters found that several other powerful figures close to Mr Putin - often ex-KGB - also have successful children in lucrative management jobs. He is passionate about ice hockey, like judo - and state TV has shown his skills on the ice.

Mr Putin's brand of patriotism dominates Russia's media, skewing coverage in his favour, so the full extent of opposition is hard to gauge. Even in , as prime minister under President Dmitry Medvedev, he was clearly holding the levers of power. In his first two terms as president, Mr Putin was buoyed by healthy income from oil and gas - Russia's main exports.

Living standards for most Russians improved. But the price, in the opinion of many, was the erosion of Russia's fledgling democracy. Since the global financial crisis Mr Putin has struggled with an anaemic economy, hit by recession and more recently a plunge in the price of oil. Russia lost many foreign investors and billions of dollars in capital flight.

Mr Putin's rule has been marked by conservative Russian nationalism. It has strong echoes of tsarist absolutism, encouraged by the Orthodox Church. The Church supported a ban on groups spreading gay "propaganda" among teenagers. Soon after becoming president Mr Putin set about marginalising liberals, often replacing them with more hardline allies or neutrals seen as little more than yes-men. Yeltsin favourites such as the oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky ended up as fugitives living in exile abroad.

International concern about human rights in Russia grew with the jailing of oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once one of the world's richest billionaires, and of anti-Putin activists from the punk group Pussy Riot. Agents of the Russian state were accused of murdering him. Will Putin rule Russia forever? Russia-Turkey tension: How Putin acts in a crisis.

Syria poses challenges for Putin. Russia's leaders in workout session. Patriotic fervour on the rise in Russia. Putin reveals secret Crimea plot. The fates of Putin's enemies. Russian presidency. Image source, Getty Images. President Putin sometimes humiliates senior officials on state TV. Ukraine tensions. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A look at his 20 years in power. Image source, AFP. Russia's backing for eastern Ukraine separatists.

March Mr Putin plays in the snow with his dogs outside Moscow. Novichok and Navalny. Tough childhood. In a year-old Japanese girl floored Mr Putin in Tokyo.

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