yeah, this shrewd kgb agent didn't use his position and connections to make money off the fucked up russian economy and *recovery*.
Quote:
After retiring from the KGB in 1991, Putin used his connections to land a job as the head of the Committee for External Relations to the mayor of St. Petersberg. By 1994 he had risen to the deputy head of the city administration for St. Petersberg and by 1997 Putin was also running the "Our Home Is Russia" political party. Putin then moved to Moscow where he was quickly made Chief of Presidential Staff by then President Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin eventually appointed him to the role of Prime Minister and named Putin as his chosen successor.
After Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned on December 31st, 1999, Putin became the acting President of the Russian Federation and thereby launched a nearly 15 year reign of absolute power and control. During his reign, many Russian insiders and experts believe that Putin has used his power to do a little more than run the country. While many previously state-owned industries were privatized, Putin allegedly used his power to build large secret ownership stakes several multi-billion dollar commodity firms. His most vocal critics assert that Putin has leveraged his power to acquire a 4.5% ownership stake in natural gas producer Gazprom, a 37% stake in oil company Surgutneftegas and 50% stake in Swiss oil-trader Gunvor. Gazprom alone does over $150 billion in revenue annually, Guvnor does $80 billion and Surgutneftegas over $20 billion. Using their most recent market capitalizations, Putin's combined ownership stakes would give him a personal net worth of $70 billion!
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