Vladimir Putin

"You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place."

- Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin (October 7th, 1952 - ) is the current President of Russia in his second stint as president since 2012, having previously served from 2000 until 2008. In between his two stints as president he served as Prime Minister of Russia. He was previously an agent of the KGB.

Putin is widely considered to be a dictator; many watchdog organizations have cited human rights abuses and accusations of political corruption in his regime, and often his political opponents tend to mysteriously "disappear". He also has many alleged criminal connections.

His style of governance seems to be based on that of former Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Villainy

 * Putin is homophobic and transphobic; in 2012, he banned gay pride parades and protests in Moscow for 100 years.
 * His administration has been linked to domestic terrorist attacks in Russia.
 * He has enacted purges of several of his political enemies, similar to those carried out by Joseph Stalin.
 * Though he has denied this, there is evidence that his administration directly interfered in the United States' 2016 presidential election.
 * He has banned protests.
 * He is allies with Bashar al-Assad, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was also friendly with Muammar Gaddafi.
 * He has suppressed all mass media that is not controlled by the state.
 * His invasions of Ukraine, Georgia, and Crimea.
 * Despite the Russian Constitution forbidding the use of torture, Putin allows Federal Security Service officers to use torture.
 * During Putin’s years in office, a series of Russian democrats, journalists and opposition leaders have been killed in mysterious circumstances.
 * He is the architect of the Second Chechen War.
 * Putin has displayed traits of antisemitism, as Jews are the primary target for racism in Russia.
 * According to this article by Finnish magazine and tabloid Iltalehti, a report by political ministries revealed that Putin and his government are trying to control Finnish politics and possibly detach Finland politically from other Nordic countries, the Baltic states and the political camp managed by USA and Great-Britain.
 * Penalized deny the Jewish holocaust with prison.

Human right violations
His record on human rights has been marked by the flattening of Chechnya, the demolition of Georgia, the crackdown of all media, especially independently-owned media that has been critical of the Kremlin such as NTV, the instigation of an armed conflict in eastern Ukraine that culminated in the accidental downing of a civilian aircraft, the bombing of aid convoys, the slew of Kremlin opponents dropping dead from polonium poisoning, Russian soldiers taking long "vacations", and the suppression and abuse of protestors.