Short answers, pulled from the story.
Vladimir Putin was born on the 7th of October 1952 in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. His grandfather Spiridon Putin served as a personal cook to both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Putin studied law at Leningrad State University, graduating in 1975, and worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years before entering politics.
From 1985 to 1990, Putin served in Dresden, East Germany, using cover as a translator. He acted as one of the KGB's liaison officers to the East German Stasi secret police and was reportedly promoted to lieutenant colonel. The East German government awarded him a bronze medal for "faithful service to the National People's Army." He resigned from the KGB on the 20th of August 1991, the second day of the coup attempt against Gorbachev.
Putin began his political career in 1990 as an advisor to Saint Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and was appointed director of the FSB in 1998 by President Boris Yeltsin. In August 1999, Yeltsin named him acting Prime Minister and endorsed him as his preferred successor. Putin won the presidential election in March 2000 and was inaugurated on the 7th of May 2000.
During Putin's first eight years as president, the Russian economy grew on average by seven percent per year, driven by economic reforms and a fivefold increase in oil and gas prices. Income in USD terms increased 4.5 times between 2000 and 2016. Russia repaid the Soviet Union's debts by 2005. A financial crisis began in the second half of 2014 when oil prices fell and international sanctions were imposed following the annexation of Crimea.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023 for war crimes related to his alleged criminal responsibility for illegal child abductions during the war in Ukraine. The warrant was issued during his fourth presidential term, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In April 2021, following a referendum, Putin signed constitutional amendments into law that included a provision allowing him to run for reelection twice more. This change potentially extends his presidency to 2036. He was reelected to another term in March 2024.