Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin watches the ice hockey match between Russia and Canada during the Baltika Cup tournament in Moscow, Thursday, December 16, 1999. Person at right is unidentified. (Photo by Mikhail Metzel/AP Photo)





In this August 27, 1999 file photo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, presents an award to a local police officer at a Russian military base in the mountains of the Botlikh region, Dagestan. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin named the relatively little-known Vladimir Putin as his prime minister, on Aug. 9, 1999 days after Islamic militants based in Chechnya staged armed incursions into Dagestan. Russian forces entered Chechnya weeks after the attacks, starting the second of two post-Soviet wars in the mostly Muslim region and driving its separatist leadership from power. (Photo by AP Photo)





In this file photo dated 19 December 1999 shows Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin casting his ballot in a Moscow polling booth for Russian parliamentary elections. Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced 31 December, 1999 in Moscow that he was resigning immediately and that the country would be run by Premier Vladimir Putin until presidential elections next March. (Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/EPA)





Retiring Russian President Boris Yeltsin (R) shakes hands with Prime Minister and acting President Vladimir Putin (L) as he leaves his office in the Kremlin 31 December 1999, as Presidential Administration head Alexander Voloshin (2D L) looks on (others unidentified). Yeltsin earlier announced his resignation, stipulating that Putin, under the Russian constitution, would run the county as acting president until elections in March 2000. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)





U.S. President Bill Clinton, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin are during a signing ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow, Sunday, June 4, 2000. Clinton and Putin signed agreements Sunday to dispose of 68 tons of weapons-grade plutonium and to share early-warning data on missile and space launches. (Photo by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)





Cuban President Fidel Castro (R) stands with Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) 14 December 2000 in Havana. The two leaders denounced US world domination during an historic summit, pledging to rebuild their Cold War-era ties. (Photo by Sergei Chirikov/AFP Photo)





North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center, introduces his staff to Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, prior to their talks in Moscow's Kremlin, Saturday, Aug. 4, 2001. Putin and Kim opened talks in the Kremlin Saturday that were expected to renew economic and other ties between the two once ideological allies. (Photo by Sergi Velichkin/AP Photo/ITAR-TASS/Presidential Press Service)





Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, puts his arm around President Bush after the two leaders signed an arms treaty at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 24, 2002. The two leaders signed a treaty cutting the number of strategic nuclear warheads over 10 years to one-third their current level, a declaration on a new strategic relationship and a statement on cooperation in the field of energy. (Photo by Doug Mills/AP Photo)





British Prime Minister Tony Blair, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin walk at a government residence in the region of Zavidovo, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Moscow, Friday, October 11, 2002. Putin said Friday he believed the Security Council could reach common ground on Iraq and did not rule out Moscow's agreeing to a new U.N. resolution on the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)





Russian President Vladimir Putin covers his head in a cold wind at the village of Ovsyanka near Krasnoyarsk, some 3,400 km ( 2,100 miles ) east of Moscow, where he continued his pre-election trip, Friday, February 27, 2004. Russians will vote at presidential elections on March 14, 2004. (Photo by AP Photo/ITAR-TASS/Presidential Press Service)





Britain's Earl of Wessex Prince Edward, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, from left to right, listen to the speeches when leaders from 30 countries gather to remember the victims of the Holocaust on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops in Oswiecim, southern Poland on Thursday, January 27, 2005. (Photo by Herbert Knosowski/AP Photo)





US President George W. Bush (R) and Russian President Vladimir Putin wave as the two presidents go for a ride in Putin's 1956 Volga before dinner 08 May 2005 at the his residence outside of Moscow. Bush hailed Russia's “bravery and sacrifice” in defeating Nazism, as he met Putin ahead of ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Bush, who the previous day criticized the decades-long Soviet occupation of central Europe, said he was looking forward to the 09 May ceremony on Moscow's Red Square, to be attended by over 50 national leaders. (Photo by Tim Sloan/AFP Photo)





German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. President George W. Bush (obscured), British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (obscured), Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Vladimir Putin (clockwise from L) are seen during a working meeting in Heiligendamm June 7, 2007. Leaders from the world's major industrialised nations meet in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6-8 for a Group of Eight (G8) summit. (Photo by Denis Sinyakov/AP Photo)





Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides a horse during his vacation outside the town of Kyzyl in Southern Siberia on August 3, 2009. (Photo by Alexey Druzhinin//AFP Photo)





Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, addresses the State Duma (parliament's lower chamber) with his annual speech in Moscow, Tuesday, April 20, 2010. (Photo by Misha Japaridze/AP Photo)





Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, center, gestures speaking at his meeting with miners in the western Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, Russia, Thursday, June 24, 2010. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/AP Photo/RIA-Novosti)





Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, 4th from left, speaks with the crew of the Mikhail Stanitsyn refrigerating trawler while visiting the ship anchored at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky harbor, the regional capital of Russia's Pacific Kamchatka peninsula, Tuesday, August 24, 2010. Putin is on a trip around East Siberia and the Far East, the state news agency ITAR-Tass reported. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/AP Photo/RIA Novosti)





In this Friday, December 10, 2010 photo Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, center, sings during a charity concert in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/AP Photo/RIA Novosti)





Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, right, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wave during a United Russia party congress in Moscow, Saturday, September 24, 2011. Russia's dominant political party on Saturday nominated Vladimir Putin for president, almost certainly ensuring his return to the office he held for eight years, and approved Putin's proposal that current president Dmitry Medvedev swap places and become prime minister. (Photo by Yekaterina Shtukina/AP Photo/RIA Novosti/Presidential Press Service)





Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila walk in Cathedral Square after his inauguration in the Kremlin in Moscow, Monday, May 7, 2012. Vladimir Putin has been sworn in as Russia's president for a third term after four years as prime minister. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/AP Photo/RIA-Novosti/Government Press Service)





Russian President Vladimir Putin enters a hall to attend the presentation ceremony of the top military brass in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 28, 2014. Russia's president says Ukraine could regain some arms and equipment of military units in Crimea that did not switch their loyalty to Russia. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/AP Photo/RIA-Novosti/Presidential Press Service)





In this Sept. 5, 2016 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Hangzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang province. The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, October 13, 2016, that the United States is conducting a “scorched earth” policy in relation to Russia during the final months of Obama's presidency. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo via AP Photo)





Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, foreground left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, foreground right, stand under umbrellas as thet take part in a wreath laying ceremony to the Tomb of Unknown Soldier in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, June 22, 2017, marking the 76th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo via AP Photo)