VLADIMIR Putin has been described as a tyrant, a dictator, and even a "super-villain", by Boris Johnson.

Russia's strongman has denied being behind recent attacks on foreign soil using deadly nerve agent.

How long has Vladimir Putin been President for?

Vladimir Putin, 68, has been President of Russia for a very long time.

The former KGB operative is already the longest-serving leader since ruthless Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Putin, a little-known security chief, was appointed acting prime minister on August 9 1999 by then president Boris Yeltsin.

He has been in office as president or prime minister ever since – a period spanning two decades.

Plus, a referendum in July 2020 allows Putin to stay in power until 2036.

Putin won his first presidential election in 2000, securing his second win in 2004, with more than 70 per cent of the vote.

In 2008, he lost his treasured position because of constitutional limits.

This banned him from serving more than two consecutive presidential terms.

So, Putin became prime minister after his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, was named president.

But, in 2012 Putin returned to the presidency, apparently winning re-election with over 60 per cent of the vote after a decision to extend presidential terms to six from four years.

Large anti-Putin protests took place before and after the vote with critics alleging voter fraud.

In March 2018, days after former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter were poisoned in England with a nerve agent, Putin won a landslide re-election victory.

This also gave him the mandate to stay in office until 2024.

Then, in July 2020, Russians opened the door to Putin clutching on to his power until 2036.

They voted overwhelmingly for constitutional changes that will allow him to run again for president twice.

However critics said the outcome was falsified on an industrial scale.

In an about-turn, though, Putin has shockingly hinted that he could QUIT despite pushing through a new law making him “president for life”.

He could instead become a senator for life under surprise new legislation, it was announced in November 2020.

Putin is planning to quit early next year amid growing fears for his health, Moscow sources have claimed.

Kremlin watchers said recent footage showed the strongman has possible symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.

What's his net worth?

Russian President Vladimir Putin is notoriously secretive – including his finances, which remain a mystery, reports Fox Business.

But, several years ago former Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder estimated the Russian leader’s net worth at $200 billion.

“I estimate that [Putin] has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains,” Browder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in the US in 2017.

How old is Vladimir Putin?

The Russian leader was born in Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) on October 7 1952, making him 68 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.

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 2020, unseen pictures of Putin's daughters emerged from the private collection of an estranged crony.

The images show Maria and Katerina as teenagers soon after he took power in the early 2000s.

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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