The whole world has been watching Vladimir Putin’s decisions since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. An authoritarian and enigmatic character, the master of the Kremlin fascinates as much as he worries. And some lines of his biography are at least surprising. Here are five facts you may not have known about the man who has ruled Russia almost continuously since the 2000s.
1. Since 1999, a Georgian woman has been posing as her mother.
Vladimir Putin was officially born in Leningrad on October 7, 1952. Officially, he is the son of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin and Maria Ivanovna Putina, two workers. However, since 1999, the elderly woman has been telling whoever is willing to listen that Vladimir Putin is her son from a small remote village in Georgia.
She told her story to Dutch filmmaker Ineka Smits, who made a documentary based on it, which aired in 2004 on Arte. A woman who became pregnant by a soldier before meeting her Georgian husband. After the birth in Georgia, the child was entrusted to her grandmother, who settled in Moscow. His mother then loses sight of him until she finds him interim president of the Russian Federation in 1999 when Boris Yeltsin resigns. There is no formal evidence to support this elderly woman’s thesis. But from the depths of Georgia, an entire village tells its anecdotes about the young Vladimir Putin.
2. He owes a lot to his former German teacher
At school, young Vladimir Putin is not the best in class. Stormy, brash, his high school career is turned upside down after a meeting with a German teacher. Taking young Putin under her wing, Vera Gurevich will introduce art and culture to a young man who is already very athletic and a sambo and judo champion.
According to the official version, given, in particular, in the French program Inter Affaires Sensibles, Russian intelligence agencies asked the teacher to choose one of her students and accompany her to success. The role of Vera Gurevich was widely promoted by Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. In March 2020, many cameras film the meeting between the owner of the Kremlin and his former teacher in St. Petersburg.
3. He stood in front of an angry mob to keep the secrets of the KGB
In 1989, Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent working in Dresden, a city in East Germany near the Czech-Polish border. As the Berlin Wall falls, a mob of angry demonstrators storm the local branch of the Ministry of State Security and, in turn, the headquarters of the Soviet secret services, located on the same street.
When he fails to reach his superiors in Moscow, Vladimir Putin decides to speak alone to the crowd. In German, he threatens to open fire in the event of an invasion, some demonstrators were told years later. Winning bet. For several days, he will hand over as many documents as possible, then burn the rest before leaving Germany as quickly as possible and reaching St. Petersburg, where he works for the mayor.
Vladimir Putin (right) with Mikhail Gorbachev in St. Petersburg in 1994. MAXPPP
4. He televised a porn video to weaken an opponent.
Vladimir Putin is now director of the powerful FSB intelligence service when President Boris Yeltsin asks for his help. The latter baffles Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov, who is investigating his assets in Switzerland. A few weeks later, a pornographic video is broadcast on television. After that, Vladimir Putin himself announces in an interview that the man we see having sex with two women is indeed Yuri Skuratov.
5. He was in France when he became president.
In 1999, Vladimir Putin will move from the shadows into the light. The oligarchs seek to replace the ailing and politically weakened Boris Yeltsin. Putin’s name emerges from discussions. The former KGB colonel is now on holiday in France with his wife and two daughters.
The writer and former Russian diplomat Vladimir Fedorovsky reports that it was in Biarritz that the decisive meeting of the future Prime Minister and oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who flew in specially from Russia on a private plane, took place. Vladimir Putin accepts the offer, packs his bags and a few days later receives the head of the country, which he still heads.