Chapter Six - Year 2000

CHAPTER SIX

Year 2000

WHEN PUTIN TOOK over as acting president at the end of 1999, most Russians didn’t know who he was. He gave a short speech on TV while Yeltsin stood next to him. It was quiet, rehearsed, and forgettable. He didn’t smile or make any promises, he just said he would protect the country.

That was enough.

Russia at the time was exhausted. The ’90s had been chaos. The ruble had crashed. Inflation was brutal. Crime was everywhere. Wages went unpaid. The war in Chechnya was still dragging on, and Yeltsin’s government had become a national punchline. People were angry, scared, and sick of watching things fall apart.

Putin didn’t need to win them over. He just needed to be the opposite of what came before.

When the 2000 election came around, he didn’t campaign like a typical candidate, do rallies, or build a big platform. State TV handled most of it for him. They showed him flying in helicopters, meeting soldiers, and walking through war zones. No jokes. No mess. Just strength and order.

That was the image.

He won the election in the first round. No runoff or suspense, just a clear handoff from Yeltsin’s chaos to something colder and more stable.

Once he was officially president, he moved quickly.

He started by going after the governors, the regional leaders who had built their own little power bases during the 1990s. Putin cut their independence. He made it clear that they answered to Moscow now. Some pushed back. They didn’t last.

He then turned to the oligarchs, the businessmen who had taken over huge chunks of the economy after the Soviet collapse. At first, they thought they could control him. They were wrong. One by one, he brought them in, reminded them who was in charge, and made them choose. Fall in line or fall apart.

The message was simple: you can keep your money, but you don’t get to run the country.

By the end of his first year, it was clear that Putin wasn’t just filling the role. He was rewriting it. The presidency wasn’t a caretaker job anymore. It was the center of the entire system.

No more improv.
No more chaos.
He was the state now.