Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as the president of Russia since 2012. Putin has held continuous positions as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.
The 2011–2013 Russian protests, which some English language media referred to as the Snow Revolution, began in 2011 and continued into 2012 and 2013. The protests were motivated by claims of Russian and foreign journalists, political activists and members of the public that the election process was fraudulent. The Central Election Commission of Russia stated 11.5% of official reports of fraud could be confirmed as true.
Opposition to the government of President Vladimir Putin in Russia can be divided between the parliamentary opposition parties in the State Duma and the various non-systemic opposition organizations. While the former are largely viewed as being more or less loyal to the government and Putin, the latter oppose the government and are mostly unrepresented in government bodies.
The following lists events that happened in the year 2014 in Ukraine.
The Night Wolves or Night Wolves Motorcycle Club is a Russian motorcycle club that was founded around the Moscow area in 1989. It holds an international status with at least 45 chapters world-wide.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing international conflict between Russia, alongside Russian-backed separatists, and Ukraine, which began in February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas war. The first eight years of conflict also included naval incidents, cyberwarfare, and heightened political tensions. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
From the end of February 2014, demonstrations by Russian-backed, pro-Russian, and anti-government groups took place in major cities across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the ousting of Russian-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych. The unrest, which was supported by Russian military and intelligence, belongs to the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. On 22–23 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an all-night meeting with security services chiefs to discuss pullout of deposed President, Viktor Yanukovych, and at the end of that meeting Putin remarked that "we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia.". Russia sent in soldiers on February 27, 2014. Crimea held a referendum. According to official Russian and Crimean sources 95% voted to reunite with Russia. The legitimacy of the referendum has been questioned by the international community on both legal and procedural grounds.
In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it. This took place in the relative power vacuum immediately following the Revolution of Dignity and was the first act of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War.
The following lists events that happened in 2014 in Russia.
This is a timeline of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest that has erupted in Ukraine, in the aftermath of the Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan movement.
Media portrayals of the Russo-Ukrainian War, including skirmishes in eastern Donbas and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution after the Euromaidan protests, the subsequent 2014 annexation of Crimea, incursions into Donbas, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have differed widely between Ukrainian, Western and Russian media. Russian, Ukrainian, and Western media have all, to various degrees, been accused of propagandizing, and of waging an information war.
"Putin – khuylo!" or "Putin – khuilo!" is a slogan deriding Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian intelligentsia expressed various reactions to the Russian annexation of Crimea.
The 2017–2018 Russian protests were a long series of countrywide street protest actions and demonstrations in the Russian Federation, which were primarily concerned with suppressing corruption in the Russian government and abandoning the planned retirement age hike.
Protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine occurred simultaneously in many places worldwide, including in Russia and in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, anti-war demonstrations and protests broke out across Russia. As well as the demonstrations, a number of petitions and open letters have been penned in opposition to the war, and a number of public figures, both cultural and political, have released statements against the war.
The white-blue-white flag is a symbol of opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has been used by Russian anti-war protesters. It has also been used as a symbol of opposition to the current government of Vladimir Putin by several personal internet accounts, and the Freedom of Russia Legion.
The 2022 Moscow rally, officially known in Russia as "For a world without Nazism", was a political rally and concert at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on 18 March 2022, which marked the eighth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. President Vladimir Putin spoke at the event, justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine and praising Russian troops, to a crowd of 200,000 people, per Moscow City Police. Outlets including the BBC and the Moscow Times reported that state employees were transported to the venue, and other attendees were paid or forced to attend.
The Russian occupation of Crimea is an ongoing military occupation within Ukraine by the Russian Federation, which began on 20 February 2014 when the military-political, administrative, economic and social order of Russia was spread to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. The occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol was the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
