A Quarter Century of Leadership in Russia: What Were Putin's Promises and What Happened?

Boris Yeltsin handed over power to 47-year-old Vladimir Putin 25 years ago, asking him to 'take care of Russia.' Now 72, Putin claimed in his latest press conference summarizing the results of 2024 that he has 'not only taken care of Russia but has pulled a country that was on the brink of collapse back from the edge.' In his New Year's message, he asserted that Russian citizens should be proud of Russia's achievements. His vague promise that 'everything will be fine' comes at a time when Russia faces increasing challenges and significant Kremlin achievements on the international stage are diminishing. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin holds absolute power in Russia and, by the end of his current presidential term, will have governed the country longer than any other ruler since the late 18th century. Putin's rise to power was unexpected for most Russian citizens and even many observers of Russian affairs. On December 31, 1999, as Russians prepared for the New Year and the new millennium, then-President Boris Yeltsin announced his resignation in a brief televised speech. According to the Russian Constitution, Vladimir Putin, who was then only four and a half months into his role as Prime Minister, became the acting President. At that time, Putin was a relatively obscure figure. After years of service in the KGB and then in the Russian security agency, he began his political career in the team of Anatoly Sobchak, the famous liberal mayor of St. Petersburg. Numerous reports indicate that Putin established strong ties with organized criminals during these years. Boris Berezovsky, a businessman and influential figure during Yeltsin's era, is said to have facilitated Putin's transfer to Moscow and his appointment as Prime Minister. From Berezovsky's perspective, Putin was 'an identity-less person and a puppet.' However, this assessment proved to be incorrect. Putin, who was elected President of Russia on March 26, 2000, with 53% of the vote, focused on dismantling the Yeltsin-era oligarchy as his first act upon entering the Kremlin. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was then the richest man in Russia, was imprisoned for 10 years on charges of money laundering, financial corruption, and tax evasion. The body of Boris Berezovsky was found under mysterious circumstances in his home in London in 2013. Other businessmen like Roman Abramovich, Vladimir Potanin, or Mikhail Friedman had to share their wealth with Putin's friends and prove their loyalty to the Kremlin. Putin appointed his close associates as local heads of Russia, thereby consolidating his power. The significant rise in oil and gas prices during the first decade of Putin's presidency allowed him to deposit substantial funds into the treasury and improve public welfare. For many Russian citizens, Vladimir Putin became a symbol of stabilizing the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tumultuous years of the 1990s. Recently, Putin's New Year's message from 1999 has been circulated again in the media and social networks. In this speech, Putin described peace as 'the most important condition of life.' Following the bloody wars in Chechnya and Georgia, the occupation and annexation of Crimea, and the provocation of war in Eastern Ukraine, the full-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine has caused widespread destruction and hundreds of thousands of casualties. Concurrently with Russian airstrikes against Ukraine, Ukrainian drones and missiles continually attack Russian territory, with parts of the Kursk region occupied by Ukrainian forces. Another of Putin's promises upon gaining power was freedom of expression and free media in Russia. In this speech, he called civil liberties 'an inseparable element of a civilized society' and emphasized that the government would guarantee the rights of Russian citizens. In 2001, NTV, the most important opposition television network, was shut down. Shortly thereafter, the arrest of editors from several major media outlets and the murder of several journalists indicated that the Kremlin could not tolerate dissenting voices. The onset of the war in Ukraine coincided with widespread repression in Russia. Hundreds of websites have been blocked, and dozens of journalists have been imprisoned. Currently, there are no media outlets remaining in Russia that are not under Kremlin control. Additionally, the right of Russian citizens to peaceful protests and demonstrations promised by Putin has been revoked. Even standing in the street with a blank sheet of paper is prohibited if the Russian government considers it a 'protest action.' Hundreds of people have been imprisoned for political reasons in Russia, and this number is increasing. According to the human rights organization Memorial, whose activities, like those of dozens of other civil organizations in Russia, have been banned, the number of political prisoners in Russia now exceeds that of political prisoners in the former Soviet Union after Stalin's era. In his first message to Russian citizens, Putin also announced that the Russian government would be the guarantor of the country's security and all Russian citizens. There are suspicions that Russian security agents were involved in explosions in residential buildings in Moscow to provide the Kremlin with a pretext for continuing the war in Chechnya. Russian security agents have also killed or attempted to assassinate numerous individuals, including those outside Russia. Last year, Alexei Navalny died after being poisoned with a nerve agent and a long period of imprisonment under suspicious conditions. In response, Putin stated, 'It was an incident that happened.' Putin emphasized 25 years ago that 'no one has the right to disregard Russian laws and violate the constitution.' In 2020, after a referendum that was held amid allegations of 'widespread fraud,' the Russian constitution was amended to allow Putin to remain in the presidency until 2036. From strategic partnership with the West to cooperation with 'friendly countries,' George W. Bush, the then-President of the United States, described Vladimir Putin in 2001 as 'a very straightforward and trustworthy person.' In the same year, Putin proposed cooperation to the European Union during a speech in the German parliament. With the possibility that Russia might one day join NATO and the European Union, the period of 'strategic partnership' between Russia and the U.S. and Europe began. With the establishment of a NATO office in Moscow and Russia's representation in Brussels, the NATO-Russia Council was engaged in ongoing consultations. However, a few years later, Putin's stance changed. At the Munich Security Conference in 2006, Putin accused the U.S. and the European Union of not considering Russia a superpower. He viewed NATO's expansion into Central and Eastern European countries as a security threat to Russia. At the NATO summit in 2008, where the potential membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO was announced, Putin changed his approach towards the West by 180 degrees. During Barack Obama's first presidential term, Washington attempted to 'reset' relations with Moscow, but these efforts went nowhere, and after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by Russia, Moscow's relations with the West became fraught with unprecedented tensions. Following the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has faced extensive Western sanctions. Now, Moscow's priorities have shifted to developing relations with 'friendly countries,' but this approach has led to increasing dependence on China and weakened the Kremlin's influence among its neighbors in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In recent years, support from Iran and North Korea for Russia's war against Ukraine has fundamentally changed Moscow's relations with these two countries. Moscow announced that in the early days of the new year, it would sign a strategic cooperation agreement with Tehran.