For 20 years as of Aug. 9, Vladimir Putin has been synonymous with Russian leadership.
A former KGB officer and deputy mayor, Putin rose out of the shadows to power as the named successor after Boris Yeltsin’s resignation.
“I never heard that anyone from former KGB would be any close to this team,” said Andrei Illarionov, Putin’s former economic adviser.
It was unprecedented that a director of Russia’s national security service, the FSB, would someday lead the country.
Also appears on the BBC World Service: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csy5tt