![\"vladimir](\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/vladimir-putin-forbes.jpg\")
Russian President Putin is the most powerful person in the world, beating out U.S. President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel.<\/h1>\nRussian President Putin is the most powerful person in the world, beating out U.S. President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel.<\/h1>\nThe Russian president has remained the most powerful person for the third year running.<\/p>\n
The past 12 months have been a tour de force for Russia\u2019s foreign policy with Moscow annexing the Crimean Peninsula, supporting insurgents in eastern Ukraine, and launching an air campaign in Syria in support of the country\u2019s besieged president, and key Russian ally, Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
But Russia\u2019s actions in Ukraine have not been without consequence. The West, led by the U.S. and EU, has levied severe sanctions on Russia, which, coupled with a staggering fall in the price of oil, has crippled the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
That has not deterred Putin, nor has it brought about any meaningful signs that he would acquiesce to international concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cPutin continues to prove he\u2019s one of the few men in the world powerful enough to do what he wants — and get away with it,\u201d wrote Forbes\u2019 David Ewalt.<\/p>\n
The most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes\u2019 estimate, Merkel took second place, rising three spots from last year. Forbes described her as \u201cthe backbone\u201d of the EU.<\/p>\n
Obama, meanwhile, fell one spot from last year to third place.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Obama enters the final year of his presidency, it\u2019s clear his influence is shrinking, and it\u2019s a bigger struggle than ever to get things done,\u201d the magazine wrote.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis wasn\u2019t far behind, taking the number four spot behind his fellow heads of state.<\/p>\n
Forbes\u2019 Most Powerful People of 2015 is an annual ranking of leading executives, political leaders, and philanthropists that takes into account their financial resources, power over others, extent of their sway, and how frequently they use their power (Anadolu Agency).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President Putin is the most powerful person in the world, beating out U.S. President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,80,63,17,14],"tags":[4307,629,542,6462,1567],"class_list":["post-57643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-world","tag-angela-merkel","tag-barack-obama","tag-obama","tag-russian-president","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}