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Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (born 14 September 1965) is the President of Russia, inaugurated on May 7, 2008. He won the presidential election held on March 2, 2008 with about 70% of the vote.

Medvedev was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government on November 14, 2005. Formerly Vladimir Putin‘s chief of staff, he was also the Chairman of Gazprom‘s board of directors, a post he had held, for the second time, since 2000.

On December 10, 2007, he was informally endorsed as a candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections by the largest Russian political party, United Russia, and officially endorsed on December 17, 2007.

Read the rest about him from Wikipedia, The BBC, The Economist and the NY Times.

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Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is the current President of the Russian Federation. He became acting President on December 31, 1999, succeeding Boris Yeltsin, and then won the 2000 presidential election. In 2004, he was re-elected for a second term, which expires on May 7, 2008. Read the rest of his bio from Wikipedia

Read about his Presidency