...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...on Thursday endorsed Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's undeclared bid to head the strife-torn North African nation as the two leaders negotiated a massive Moscow weapons deal.
Sisi came to Moscow with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy for talks aimed at securing Russian assistance -- stagnant since the late Soviet era -- that could replace subsiding support from Cairo's more recent ally Washington.
Putin told Sisi that Moscow fully backed Egypt's new constitution and crucially made no mention of Cairo's crackdown on protests or the army-backed overthrow in July of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi
...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the
One Man, One Vote, One Timeprinciple, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator...
"I know that you, mister defense minister, have decided to run for president of Egypt," Putin told Sisi in televised remarks.