How Putin rose to power is spelled out by Russian journalist Masha Gessen. She says Putin, a KGB operative with little government experience before he was first elected in 1999, was specifically selected by the elite cohort that surrounded former President Boris Yeltsin.
“One of the very few requirements that Yeltsin’s inner circle presented to people was that they had to be personally loyal to Yeltsin, who very much feared he would be prosecuted once he left office,” Gessen tells Fresh Air‘s Dave Davies. “And one thing about Putin that seems to have been consistent throughout his career is that he does have a great sense of personal loyalty. I think Yeltsin’s inner circle sensed this. And this is why Yeltsin picked Putin.”
