Dmitry Medvedev resigned as Russian prime minister on January 15, shortly after President Vladimir Putin announced broad changes to the constitution in his annual state-of-the-nation speech. Medvedev had also served as Russian president, but was widely considered to be part of a "ruling tandem" with Putin.
Medvedev, Former President In Putin's Shadow, Resigns As Prime Minister
- By RFE/RL
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An undated photo shows the young Dmitry Medvedev. He was born in 1965 in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad, where he studied and taught law.
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Medvedev moved into politics in the 1990s in the city government of St. Petersburg, where he worked closely with Putin, pictured here on March 26, 2000. Putin appointed Medvedev to a senior position in Moscow in 1999 when he became prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, then named Medvedev to lead his first presidential campaign the following year.
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Medvedev, then the acting deputy head of Russia's presidential administration, attends a Gazprom general meeting on June 30, 2000. He was chairman of the gas monopoly's board of directors for several years.
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In 2005, Putin appointed Medvedev first deputy prime minister, giving him the power to implement large domestic projects. In this 2007 photo, Medvedev smiles at the All-Russian New Year's Party at the Kremlin.
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Putin and Medvedev walk outside Moscow on February 29, 2008. When a two-term limit prevented Putin from running for president again in 2008, he named Medvedev, then first deputy prime minister, as his preferred successor.
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Dmitry Medvedev is sworn in as Russian president in the Kremlin throne room on May 7, 2008. The following day, Medvedev appointed Putin prime minister, as he had promised to do during the election campaign. The pair were sometimes referred to in the press as a "ruling tandem."
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Medvedev talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, at a meeting in St. Petersburg of leaders of ex-Soviet states on June 6, 2008.
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The Russian president meets with U.S. President George W. Bush before the start of a Group of Eight (G8) working session in northern Japan on July 8, 2008. Medvedev cultivated a more pro-Western image than his predecessor, and made gestures toward cracking down on corruption.
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In the first major crisis of Medvedev's presidency, Russia fought a five-day war with Georgia over the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In this photo from August 26, 2008, people in Sukhumi wave flags as they celebrate Moscow's recognition of the territories as independent states.
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On September 23, 2008, Medvedev poses with reindeer herders in the town of Kanchalan in Russia's Chukotka region.
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In another photo opportunity, Medvedev takes aim as he visits the Federal Security Service (FSB) Special Task Center in Russia's southern region of Daghestan on June 9, 2009.
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A matryoshka or Russian nesting doll at a market in St. Petersburg shows Putin lurking behind Medvedev.
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The two leaders take a fishing trip together on the Volga River in Russia's Astrakhan region on August 16, 2011. Ahead of the presidential election in 2012, Medvedev said he would step aside to allow Putin to become United Russia's candidate. Putin won the election and returned to the presidency on May 7, 2012, naming Medvedev as prime minister the same day.
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Medvedev, again prime minister, visits the Crimean port of Sevastopol on May 25, 2014. He was the first Russian leader to visit the Crimean Peninsula after it was annexed by Russia in March 2014.
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People play with a toy duck, adopted as a symbol of Medvedev's alleged wealth, during an anti-corruption rally in St. Petersburg on June 12, 2017. Medvedev became a target of anti-corruption protesters after a video released by opposition leader Aleksei Navalny purported to show his extravagant properties featuring helipads, a ski slope, and a house for ducks.
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At a September 2, 2018, protest against a proposed increase to the retirement age, an activist's sign shows Putin, Medvedev, and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov with the slogan "They lie to us."
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Medvedev and his wife Svetlana attend Easter services alongside President Putin at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on April 8, 2018.
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Medvedev plays with a Turkmen shepherd dog, known as an Alabai, that he received as a gift from Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on July 17, 2019.
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Putin and Medvedev meet with members of the government in Moscow on January 15, 2020. Putin used his annual state-of-the-nation speech to call for a referendum on substantial constitutional amendments that would strengthen parliament's powers before his term ends in 2024. Hours later, Medvedev and his cabinet resigned.
