🧵The Life of Vladimir Putin

Since the Vladimir Putin interview happened today, I’ve made a thread exploring the life of Vladimir Putin – the good and the bad – particularly during his childhood and time as an associate with Boris Berezovsky since these times are little known. pic.twitter.com/vZEBm5sVV0

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

By modern standards, Putin grew up poor, but at the time his family was doing better than most. They had their own stove in their apartment for example. They also had a tv, telephone, and cabin outside the city.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Putin’s father was a skilled laborer at a train car factory while his mother worked jobs such as a cleaning woman and a night watchwoman. Putin’s friend said that there were many young thugs who inhabited the courtyard of the apartment complex.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

His friend explained: “If anyone ever insulted him in any way, Vladimir would immediately jump on the guy, scratch him, bite him, rip his hair out by the clump—do anything at all never to allow anyone to humiliate him in any way.”

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

At age 11, Putin began learning Sambo – Soviet martial art. His parents were unhappy at first but gradually warmed up to the idea. During his school years, Putin regularly got in fistfights.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

The school punished him by excluding him from the Young Pioneers organization. They normally only did this to kids who heavily struggled in school and were seen as hopeless. On one occasion, he threw chalkboard erasers at his classmates.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

“Why did you not get inducted into the Young Pioneers until sixth grade? Were things really so bad?” A reporter asked Putin.

“Of course. I was no Pioneer; I was a hooligan,” Putin answered.

“Are you putting on airs?”

“You are trying to insult me. I was a real thug.”

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Putin’s friend told a story in which two drunken men got off the train and started picking a fight with someone. Putin then handed his bag to his friend and sent one of the men flying face-first into the snow. pic.twitter.com/KqNzbiq4T1

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Even After he became a KGB officer, Putin did not stop getting into fights. He once got into a fight on a subway causing his friend to worry if he would be able to keep his job. But apparently, the KGB office decided to keep Putin.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Putin became interested in the KGB in ninth grade after reading the spy novel ‘The Shield and the Sword’ and watching the accompanying miniseries. When he was 16, he visited the KGB headquarters and asked what he would need to do to get a job. pic.twitter.com/JkAGyiH8Ce

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

He was told to go to a law college and so he did just that. Putin did not do that great in gradeschool (he got the equivalent of a C in half his subjects). Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda said that the only two classes that Putin enjoyed were Russian and German.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

But thankfully for Putin, the college based admission only on standardized tests which Putin did well in.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

The KGB officer who met with Putin during college said that he was “not particularly outgoing but energetic, flexible, and brave. Most important, he was good at connecting with people fast—a key quality for a KGB officer, especially if he plans to work in intelligence.”

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Soon Putin was offered a job with the KGB. Over the next few years he took part in trainings and worked office jobs which he did not enjoy very much. In 1985, he was assigned to work in East Germany to collect information on West Germany.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Putin lived with his wife & two daughters in East Germany for 5 yrs. It was said that he also didn’t enjoy this time very much. But upon returning to the Soviet Union Putin got a job with Mayor Sobchak in Saint Petersburg. Later he was promoted to a government job at the Kremlin.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

In 1990, Putin met Jewish businessman Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky was a car dealer looking to expand his business to the city of Leningrad. Putin, then a deputy of City Council chairman Anatoly Sobchak, had helped Berezovsky arrange to open a service station in Leningrad. pic.twitter.com/Fj1S3KZejg

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Putin had also declined to take a bribe which caused Berezovsky to trust him. “He was the first bureaucrat who did
not take bribes,” Berezovsky said. “Seriously. It made a huge impression on me.”

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Berezovsky often stopped by Putin’s office for quick chats when he was in Leningrad. Berezovsky said that he saw Putin as an ally at the time.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Berezovsky hoped that Putin would be just as loyal to him as he was to Mayor Sobchak of Saint Petersburg. Putin who had been promoted to deputy mayor during Sobchak’s administration, had refused to take a job with the new mayor after Sobchak did not win re-election.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

When Putin moved to Moscow in 1996 to take a job at the Kremlin, he saw Berezovsky more often. Berezovsky owned an exclusive club at the center of Moscow.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

He used his connections to get “No entry” traffic signs placed on the streets surrounding the club. This allowed Berezovsky to control the entire street much to the displeasure of the residents of the apartment buildings who could not drive home when the signs were put up. pic.twitter.com/jbeCfHAm39

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

In 1999, Berezovsky became very unpopular during the political power struggle that was unfolding. Nevertheless, Putin still went to his wife’s birthday party to deliver her flowers.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Berezovsky explains: “And I said, ‘Vladimir, what are you doing this for? You have enough problems as it is. Are you just making a show of it?’ And he says, ‘I am making a show of it, yes.’”
This was the event that fully brought the Putin-Berezovsky alliance together.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Berezovsky was an intelligent, risk-taking entrepreneur who used questionable tactics. He basically swindled Russia’s largest car company out of millions of dollars by leveraging credit against hyperinflation. In the mid 1990s, he dabbled in banking and acquired an oil company.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

But by far his most consequential purchase was Channel One on Russian television – the most watched television channel in Russia. Berezovsky invested heavily in Yelstin’s campaigns. Some people referred to him as the country’s shadow ruler.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

During his time as head of the FSB, Putin did not feel safe in his own office. Whenever Berezovsky would visit, Putin would take him to a broken elevator shaft behind his office because this was the only place he was certain that their conversations would not be recorded.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

One time Putin carelessly shut the door that separated the shaft from the hallway in front of his office, and the pair got locked in the elevator shaft. Putin had to pound on the wall for someone to let them out.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

During the lead up to the 2000 election, Yelstin was desperately searching for a successor who would not throw him in prison immediately after taking office. pic.twitter.com/5rSn3mn66U

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Yelstin had made many enemies throughout his presidency and now had so few loyalists that he could trust that he referred to them as his family. Most Russians felt betrayed by Yelstin. They sought consolation in the project of bringing back Russian power.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

These loyalists included Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana; chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin; former chief of staff, Valentin Yumashev whom Tatyana would later marry; another former chief of staff Anatoly Chubais; and Boris Berezovsky.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Yelstin and his loyalists couldn’t help but think that Putin would be a safe choice. They didn’t even know much about Putin but they assumed that his lack of personality and personal ambition would make him easy to control.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

So, Yelstin decided that he would make Putin prime minister of Russia. Berezovsky flew out to France where Putin was vacationing to tell him. Yelstin’s daughter Tatyana said this was because Berezovsky wanted to make himself look like the kingmaker.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Before the 2000 election, Yelstin and his Allie’s did everything they could to help Putin win in a desperate to save Yelstin. Berezovsky spread propaganda on his channel One shaping the minds of voters.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

During the campaign someone in the Yelstin family suggested that Yelstin should resign early this making Putin acting president and effectively an incumbent in the race. Yelstin took the advice and resigned on Dec 31st, 1999.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

On Jan 26th 2000 at the Russia panel at the World Economic Forum, former Yelstin official Anatoly Chublais was asked “Who is Mr. Putin?” He seemed unable to answer the question and looked over at the three other members of the panel. None of them could answer the question either.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

Putin took over at midnight on Jan 1st 2000 marking the start of a new millennium. Russians seemed to like him and he easily won his election in 2000. Berezovsky had commissioned a group of journalists to write a biography of Putin which also helped him.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

But almost immediately after Putin took office, Berezovsky turned on him. He later said that Putin was not who he thought he would be and he was disappointed. Berezovsky first disagreed with Putin only privately but soon he publicly voiced his disagreements on his tv station.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

The last straw was when Berezovsky helped Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko escape the country by using his connection to Alex Goldfarb – a George Soros employee at the time. Goldfarb flew out to Turkey and helped Litvinenko escape to London.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

In 2001, Berezovsky’s assets were seized by the Russian government and he was forced into exile in Britain. From there, Berezovsky worked to bring down Putin’s government from London.

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024

In the next few years of his presidency, Putin would consolidate his power further changing the destiny of Russia forever.

– That concludes the thread but I will be making another one on Putin soon. Follow me to see it.

🇺🇸🤝🇷🇺

— Bill🇺🇸🇻🇦✝️ (@Bill4Christ) February 9, 2024