FACTBOX-Vladimir Putin - his years in power

...nation address to parliament on Thursday.

In a hawkish annual speech, Putin said the NATO signatories to the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, (1990) were not respecting it, and the U.S. plan to put missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic made matters worse.

Here are some key facts about Vladimir Putin:

* Putin was born in Oct 1952, in St. Petersburg, then called Leningrad. A former KGB spy in East Germany, he rose to head the KGB's successor organisation FSB before being chosen as prime minister by the late President Boris Yeltsin in August 1999. He took over as acting president when Yeltsin stepped down at the end of 1999. After a huge PR campaign to build a profile for the relative unknown, he was elected president in March 2000.

* He has played to his power base in the security forces and military by using barrack-room language and by projecting a tough-guy image. After the killing in Iraq of four Russian diplomats in June 2006, he ordered the intelligence services to find the killers and "eliminate" them.

* His years in power have been marked by a significant rise in living standards, helped by soaring oil prices, but large sections of the population still live in poverty.

* Delivering on an election vow, he has crushed the Chechen rebellion for now, though armed attacks continue on Russian forces.

* He has prided himself on bringing stability and predictability to Russia after the zig-zags of the Yeltsin years. He described the demise of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". He has also overseen a steady concentration of power within the Kremlin walls, sidelining the political opposition and imposing tight control on the media.

-- Critics say newspapers are less free under Putin. Raf Shakirov, editor of the respected Izvestia newspaper, was sacked for his coverage of the 2004 Beslan school siege.

-- Two outspoken critics of Putin, journalist Anna Politkovskaya and ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, were murdered in 2006, raising concerns in Russia about the political stability Putin has been credited with enforcing after the chaos of the 1990s.

* Under his rule, Russia has emerged as an energy superpower, arousing awe, admiration and concern beyond its borders.

* Putin, highly popular at home, has said he will not seek a third term. But the president, whose support is crucial for any candidate in elections due in March 2008, has said he wanted a successor to continue his course.

Keywords: RUSSIA PUTIN/