Short answers, pulled from the story.
Vladimir Putin has continuously served as either president or prime minister of Russia since 1999, making him the country's de facto leader for more than two decades. He served as acting president from 1999 to 2000, then two full presidential terms from 2000 to 2008, as prime minister from 2008 to 2012, and has served as president again from 2012 to the present.
Putinism refers to the political ideology and governance system associated with Vladimir Putin's rule. Russian political analyst Andrey Piontkovsky first characterized it on the 11th of January 2000 in Sovetskaya Rossiya as the highest and final stage of bandit capitalism in Russia. In Western media, the term is often used to describe a system where siloviki, the military-security establishment, hold much of the political and financial power.
The Russian economy grew by an average of seven percent annually during Putin's first presidential term from 2000 to 2004, driven by a fivefold increase in oil and gas prices alongside economic reforms. By the beginning of 2008, Russia had become one of the ten largest economies in the world. The middle class grew from about 8 million people in 2000 to approximately 55 million by 2006.
Alexei Navalny was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport upon returning from treatment in Germany in January 2021. His suspended sentence was converted into a prison sentence on the 2nd of February 2021. By June 2021, a Moscow court ruled his Anti-Corruption Foundation and related organizations to be extremist, with the case heard in camera because the case file was classified as a state secret.
The 2020 constitutional amendments were proposed by Putin in January 2020, approved by referendum on the 1st of July 2020, and took effect on the 4th of July 2020 after Putin signed a decree. They extended presidential term limits, gave the president power to fire federal judges, and constitutionally banned same-sex marriage. The Venice Commission concluded that the amendments had disproportionately strengthened the president's position and removed checks and balances from the original Constitution.
According to the election-monitoring organization Golos, at least 9 million people had been deprived of the right to stand for election in Russia. This resulted from a 2021 law that barred anyone who had been a founder, head, member, employee, donor, or supporter of an organization later recognized as extremist from running for office, with retroactive effect.