During the first eight years of former President Putin in office, the Russian economy made giant steps in order to catch up with her Western rivals. The legislative processes that former President Yeltsin launched in order to concentrate the power in the President’s hand, were successful and these measures paved the way towards a semi-authoritarian regime. The developments achieved by Mr. Putin could not have been carried out without relying massively on Russia’s vast gas and oil supplies.

First and foremost the paper tries to show the significance of these scarce resources through various examples, global trends and patterns. The paper will also allow the reader to learn how possessing natural resources can influence political systems and what effects they had on Russia.

One of the main goals of the paper is to reveal what factors have contributed to the re-emergence of the Russia Federation since 2000 by analyzing transition trends and policy goals. A brief explanation of political hows, will facilitate the further understanding of the changes that had been ongoing between 2000 and 2008.

These goals that have already been mentioned, directed to support my thesis which says that President Putin learning from and influenced by the past, is using his presidential power (which derives from the massive and skillful restructuring of the political system) to control gas and oil extracting, trade, marketing in the country, in order to use them as collateral over Central Europe and broadly over the EU.