This article, taken from CBCNews, describes the history of one of the most feared and unpredictable leaders of the world today, Vladimir Putin. Born to a humble family in 1952 in then-Leningrad, he soon made something of himself by earning a degree in both economics and international law at the Leningrad State University. After this scholarly success, he opted to join the KGB, the communist intelligence agency, and rose to the position of lieutenant-colonel, remaining as such until the fall of the Soviet Union. Having resigned from spy work in 1991, he decided that he should run for city council. During the next eight years, he would hold many governmental positions, including mayoral aide, the head of the federal security service, which was the reformed, post-communism form of the KGB, and ultimately the prime minister and chosen successor of Boris Yeltsin. When Yeltsin took a permanent leave from politics in 1999, Putin became president, and throughout his two terms (he was reelected in 2004) he was very popular, largely due to his strengthening of an economy still transitioning from communism to capitalism. Due to the two-term limit ensured by the constitution, Putin stepped down after the conclusion of his second term and was replaced by noted Putin fan Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev soon made Putin his prime minister and gave the new prime minister more power so the power-share was more even between the two of them. After Medvedev’s first term ended in 2012, Putin stepped forward as president, sparking mass outcry due to claims of vote fraud at the general election. He made Medvedev the Russian prime minister. Putin’s most recent term has been fraught with outrage, especially concerning the anti-gay policies of Russia, its dealings with Syria, and its granting of asylum to Edward Snowden, a proclaimed enemy of the U.S.
This most recent act of unfairness in the election really does show what too much ambition can do to a person. Fraud at this massive of a scale should never happen under the title of a democracy. Compare this with the young Putin, and one finds two very different types of ambition. Because he wanted to make something of himself, he worked extremely hard and got his way through college, finishing with two degrees in some of the most complex subjects around. He did this for his own ends to fulfill his personal dreams, which most everyone can agree were healthy. He also helped out his lower-middle-class family by earning degrees in subjects that were likely to find him gainful employment and a source of steady income. This ambitious motivation soon became deluded by the KGB, the notorious state police that famously cracked down on detesters and naysayers. During his time there, Putin learned what corrupt power felt like and what it was to truly take away personal freedoms. This misplaced drive became overwhelmingly apparent during his illegal and corrupted third term election. There were reports of “ballot stuffing” left and right among the Russian people. As we have seen recently in the examples of Syria and Snowden, Putin does not care much, respectively, for the rights of humans nor for the generally-accepted rules of international politics, which seems ironic for an international law major. This is unacceptable and both Russians and the international community have the right to be angry at such a deluded and disillusioned dictator-of-sorts.
