What Political Party Is Vladimir Putin Aligned With?

Vladimir Putin is a member of the United Russia Party, which has supported Putin for the president since it was founded in 2001 (via Tass). This group of political conservatives is the largest party in Russia, holding about 72 percent of seats in Duma, the Russian federal parliament, as of this writing (per Yale Macmillan Center). By comparison, the second-largest party in Russia — the Communist Party of the Russian Federation — holds just over 12 percent of the Duma seats, according to the Duma website.

The United Russia Party is largely based on supporting Putin. Even when Putin ended his first presidency in 2004, it moved to support his preferred successor, Dmitry Medvedev. Under Putin, it has supported policies that have led to increased political stability for ordinary Russians at the expense of certain democratic rights (per Britannica). In a statement by the United Russia party on the Duma website, it said that its aim is the "well-being of people and the development of Russia." But what does Putin's party actually support?

Vladimir Putin, who is one of only three presidents in Russia's history, has spent his lengthy time in office focusing on reforming Russia's economic system and attempting to reestablish the country as a superpower.

Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, had been an unpopular leader as the country struggled with economic collapse during the 1990s (via The Guardian). When Putin invested in oil production, made offers to foreign investors, and streamlined the Russian tax system — dramatically improving the country's tax collection rate in the process — the economy rebounded, and his seemingly unsinkable popularity was set. In recent years, United Russia's economic policy has largely focused around the development of oil and natural gas, such as opening the Russian arctic to oil exploration (via The New York Times).

Putin also has, sometimes brutally, quashed dissent to his leadership, whether in the form of protest movements, opposition leaders, journalists, or separatists. The party, along with Russian state media, has unified around Putin in the middle of these controversies, to the point where ordinary Russians widely approved of the government's jailing of members of the punk band Pussy Riot (per The Moscow Times).