FRANCE 24: Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised no one when he was re-elected Sunday for a fourth term. Nearly two decades ago though few would have guessed the dull former spy would hold his country in an iron grip that will extend for a quarter century.

In the autumn of 1999, the Kremlin – and indeed all of Russia – was in a serious crisis. A spate of apartment bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities had killed more than 290 people. The president, Boris Yeltsin, was ailing and spending most of his days in an inebriated state. The ruble crisis had taken its toll on the economy, and Yeltsin’s inner circle was desperate to find a successor who could hold the country together.

A new man had just taken over as prime minister -- the fifth in less than two years -- and ordinary Russians knew precious little about the drab, gray former KGB agent who filled the post.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was the former head of the FSB (Federal Security Service), the successor to the communist-era KGB. A tough kid whose frequent scraps on the streets of Leningrad [later St. Petersburg] led him to embrace judo, Putin was no stranger to the dark underbelly of Russian politics. But he had none of the charisma of his political mentors, including Yeltsin and former St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who had enabled his rise to the prime minister’s post.

Just weeks after the devastating September 13, 1999, bombing of a Moscow apartment building though, Putin issued a public threat that would catapult him into the hearts of ordinary Russians, who in turn would help turn him into “the world’s most powerful person”, according to several magazine listings >>>