From 1985 to 1990 he was stationed by the KGB in East Germany.

From 1990 he was assistant to Director of Leningrad State University on international issues, then advisor to the Chairman of Leningrad City Council.

From June 1991 he was Chairman of the Committee for International Relations of St. Petersburg Government. From 1994 he was First Deputy Chairman of St. Petersburg Government.

From August 1998 he was Deputy Head of Presidential Property Management Department.

From March 1997 he was Deputy Head of Presidential Administration, Head of Presidential Audit Office.

From May 1998 he was First deputy Head of Presidential Administration.

From July 1998 he was Director of FSB, and, at the same time, from March 1999 - the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia.

From 1998 to 1999 he served as the Head of the FSB (the successor agency to the KGB).

In August 1999, he was appointed Prime Minister by Boris Yeltsin's presidential order (later affirmed by the Russian parliament). On December 31st 1999, he was appointed acting president. In March 2000, under the flag of the continuation of Yeltsin's reforms he was elected president.

However, after coming to power, President Putin abandoned all his pre-election statements of continuing Yeltin`s democratic reforms. He began to restore a centralized governmental regime.

Putin initiated a new war against Chechnya. He placed mass media under Kremlin control as well as the Russian Parliament; he began re-distributing property and money to his cronies. He established tight control of the election system. Later he began to suppress any independent opinions. During his administration tens of journalists, who had criticized his administration, were killed, and many political rivals and critics were arrested or forced to flee Russia. Thus, during his administration, Putin has violated the basic democratic constitutional principals.

Alexander Litvinenko became one of Putin's first critics. He criticized the corruption within the FSB, headed at that time by Putin. Afterwards, he investigated the FSB and Special Forces' involvement in the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, and thus he became one of the most professional and outspoken critics of Putin's regime. He conducted tens of investigations linking the FSB and Special Forces agents to murders, genocide in Chechnya and crimes against humanity.

In July 2006, Putin signed a bill authorizing Russia's Special Forces to assassinate any of "Russia's enemies" in any country in the world. It enabled Putin, without any sanctions or punishment, to eliminate his critics, a development causing concern to those with political asylum abroad such as Alexander Litvinenko.

These concerns were heightened after the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who harshly criticized Putin personally. She was gunned down in her Moscow apartment lobby, and the perpetrators have not been arrested to this day.

At a summit of European Union leaders, where Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning was discussed, President Putin declared:

"The accusations towards Russian are groundless", and added that there is no ground for the accusations towards his regime concerning Litvinenko's poisoning. Towards the end his speech, President Putin expressed hope that Great Britain will not use this incident as grounds for a "political scandal".