Mr Vladimir Putin spent most of his career in the Russian security services, being appointed head of the FSB (former KGB) just over a year ago.
Little known until then, he achieved a higher media profile in his role as secretary of Russia's Security Council, speaking out on several occasions on the Kosovo crisis.
Discreet, not given to smiling, Mr Putin was born in October 1952 in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, where he studied law and entered the foreign intelligence department of the KGB.
He worked for the KGB in Germany for several years, though details of his activities there are scarce.
Returning to Russia in the late 1980s, he became deputy rector of Leningrad University, a role widely regarded as a cover for KGB activities, and adviser to the speaker of the Leningrad parliament.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Mr Putin became head of external relations for the reformist mayor of Leningrad, Mr Anatoly Sobchak, playing a key role when the city administration was privatising large sectors of the economy and desperate for foreign investment.
It was at this time that he met Mr Anatoly Chubais, the Russian minister then responsible for privatisation, who later brought him to Moscow.
In 1994 Mr Putin was made first deputy mayor of St Petersburg, but after Mr Sobchak's defeat in municipal elections in June 1996 he was brought to Moscow at Mr Chubais's initiative, to join the presidential administration, in charge of the administration of Kremlin property.
His subsequent rise through the ranks was meteoric. In March 1997 he was named head of the General Control Department, charged with supervising implementation of presidential decrees, at the same time becoming deputy, then first deputy, of the head of the presidential administration. In July 1998 he became head of the FSB, and in March this year head of the Security Council.