From the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 through the turbulent Yeltsin years of shock therapy and the Chechen wars, the rise of Vladimir Putin and the oil-fueled recovery, the annexation of Crimea and the confrontation with the West, to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and beyond. Slide across the years to read the major events of post-Soviet Russia.
After the failed August coup, the Belavezha Accords of December dissolve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, elected president in June, leads a sovereign Russian Federation.
From the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 through the turbulent Yeltsin years of shock therapy and the Chechen wars, the rise of Vladimir Putin and the oil-fueled recovery, the annexation of Crimea and the confrontation with the West, to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and beyond. Slide across the years to read the major events of post-Soviet Russia.
After the failed August coup, the Belavezha Accords of December dissolve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, elected president in June, leads a sovereign Russian Federation.
Acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar frees most prices and launches rapid market reforms, unleashing hyperinflation that wipes out household savings.
A power struggle between Yeltsin and parliament ends with tanks shelling the White House in October; a December referendum approves a constitution granting strong presidential powers.
Federal forces enter the breakaway republic of Chechnya in December, beginning a brutal war marked by the devastating battle for Grozny.
Trailing badly in the polls, an ailing Yeltsin defeats Communist Gennady Zyuganov in a runoff, backed by oligarch-controlled media and Western support.
In August Russia devalues the ruble and defaults on its domestic debt, wiping out banks and savings and deepening public disillusion with the reforms.
After apartment bombings shock the country, the little-known Vladimir Putin is named prime minister and launches a new war in Chechnya; on 31 December Yeltsin resigns and makes him acting president.
Vladimir Putin wins the presidency in March and moves to restore the 'power vertical', curbing the oligarchs and the autonomy of the regions.
Chechen militants seize a school in Beslan in September; the three-day siege ends in carnage with more than 330 dead, many of them children.
Barred by term limits, Putin becomes prime minister as Dmitry Medvedev takes the presidency; in August a brief war with Georgia ends with Russia recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
After mass protests over disputed 2011 parliamentary elections, Putin reclaims the presidency for a six-year term and tightens laws on assembly, the media, and 'foreign agents'.
After the Maidan revolution in Ukraine, Russian forces seize Crimea and annex it following a disputed referendum; a war erupts in the eastern Donbas, drawing Western sanctions.
In September Russia launches an air campaign in support of Bashar al-Assad, its first major military operation outside the former Soviet Union since Afghanistan.
Putin wins a fourth term with a landslide and Russia hosts a successful FIFA World Cup, even as tensions with the West deepen over the Skripal poisoning in Britain.
A nationwide vote approves sweeping constitutional changes that reset the count on Putin's terms, allowing him to remain president potentially until 2036, as the COVID-19 pandemic strikes.
On 24 February Russia invades Ukraine on multiple fronts; the assault on Kyiv fails, and the war becomes the largest in Europe since 1945, triggering unprecedented Western sanctions.
In June Yevgeny Prigozhin leads his Wagner mercenaries in a march toward Moscow before abruptly halting; two months later he dies in a plane crash.
Putin wins a fifth presidential term in a tightly controlled election held weeks after the death in prison of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, while the war in Ukraine continues.