How old is Vladimir Putin, is he married and how long has he been President of Russia?
But what do we know about the 66-year-old and his personal life?
How old is Vladimir Putin?
The Russian leader's full name is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
He was born in Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) on October 7 1952, making him 66 years old.
The President was the youngest of three sons born to Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin and his wife Maria Ivanovna Putina, and his birth was preceded by the deaths of his two brothers Viktor and Albert.
How long has Putin been President of Russia?
Vladimir Putin has been President of Russia twice – previously from 2000 to 2008, before being re-elected in 2012.
Between the two terms, he served as Russia's Prime Minister.
His first stint in a position of power came in 1999, after the then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismissed his prime minister and promoted former KGB officer Vladimir Putin in his place.
In December 1999, Yeltsin resigned, appointing Putin president until official elections were held in March 2000.
He was elected to his first term with 53 per cent of the vote, and was re-elected for a follow-up four year term in 2004.
Due to constitutional term limits, Putin was prevented from running for the presidency in 2008.
Instead he was appointed prime minister by his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, allowing him to maintain a primary position of influence for the next four years.
Putin was re-elected to the presidency in March 2012 and later won a fourth term, keeping him in power until the present day.
Is Vladimir Putin married?
Putin married Lyudmila Shkrebneva on July 28 1983, and they lived together in East Germany from 1985 to 1990.
They have two daughters, Mariya Putina, born April 28 1985 in Leningrad, and Yekaterina Putina, born August 31 1986 in Dresden, East Germany.
On June 6 2013, Putin announced that their marriage was over, and on April 1 2014, the Kremlin confirmed that the divorce had been finalised.
Lyudmila was educated as a linguist and graduated from the branch of Spanish language and philology of the Department of Philology of Leningrad State University in 1986.
In her youth, Lyudmila was a flight attendant for the Kaliningrad branch of Aeroflot, before going on to teach German at the Department of Philology of Leningrad State University from 1990 to 1994.
After Vladimir's rise to political power, Lyudmila maintained a low profile on the Russian political stage, generally avoiding the limelight except as required by protocol and restricting her public role to supportive statements about her husband.
Her children were withdrawn from the German School in Moscow and no photographs of them have ever been published by the Russian media.
The Putin family have never issued an official family portrait either.
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