Plushenko was born on 3 November 1982 in Dzhamku [ru], Solnechny District, Khabarovsk Krai, Soviet Union.

[5] His mother was originally from Volgograd, Russian SFSR, and his father, a carpenter,[6] was born in Donetsk, Russia.

[11][12] Since Plushenko frequently suffered from colds, his mother decided he needed exercise and enrolled him in figure skating lessons at age four.

Going into the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Plushenko was the overwhelming favorite because of his past success under the new judging system.

[22] In 2008, Plushenko, together with violinist Edvin Marton, accompanied Dima Bilan on stage as part of the winning Eurovision Song Contest performance "Believe" in Belgrade, Serbia.

In March 2009, Plushenko announced that he had returned to training with longtime coach Alexei Mishin in order to prepare for the 2010 Olympics.

[26] In December 2009, Plushenko signed a partnership agreement with the international management agency FlashLight led by the sports agent Andreas Goller.

"[30] Plushenko finished second in the free skating and second overall, ultimately winning the silver medal with a total score of 256.36, 1.31 points behind the winner Evan Lysacek.

"[34] Russian skating champion Irina Rodnina said that although she had hoped Plushenko would win, Lysacek had a stronger overall performance.

Among them were figure skater Elvis Stojko[36] and the coaches Reinhardt Ketterer,[37] Tatiana Tarasova,[38] and Galina Zmievskaya.

[42] On March 24, 2010 Siberian jewelers decided to award Plushenko a special medal weighing more than half a kilo of pure gold.

[53] In April 2011, he sent a letter to the Russian figure skating federation president, Aleksandr Gorshkov, seeking reinstatement.

[54] Plushenko said he hoped the ban was not a retaliation of his criticism of the judging at the Olympics and that he would like to return to competition with a clean slate.

[55] Although he said he would have liked to compete at the 2011 World Championships if the ban had been lifted, he did not feel he would have been ready due to lost training time as a result of injury.

[46][56] On 12 June 2011, Plushenko said that he had undergone knee surgery due to a meniscus problem but would be back on track within two weeks.

[58][59] He was named to the Russian team for the 2012 European Championships, although he had not competed internationally recently enough to have the minimum technical elements scores (20 in the short program, 35 in the free).

The Russian figure skating federation asked the ISU to allow him to compete, with Aleksandr Gorshkov saying that the minimum scores were designed to filter out weak skaters.

[61][62] On 26 January 2012, Plushenko confirmed that he would undergo additional surgery on his meniscus after the competition and would be unable to compete at the 2012 World Championships.

[72] His work on quad Salchows and Lutzes aggravated his spinal problem and he flew to Munich, Germany for surgery, which involved searing a disk hernia with a liquid.

Although doctors recommended he stay off the ice for a month, Plushenko returned in seven days, explaining "I felt that I need to run fast in order to defend my position.

[78] On 7 November 2013, Plushenko returned to competition at the 22nd Volvo Open Cup in Riga, Latvia where he won the gold medal with an overall score of 263.25 points.

This tied him with Sweden's Gillis Grafström for the record of the most Olympic medals by a figure skater, since surpassed by the ice dance team of Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue.

[82] After struggling with a back injury during practice, Plushenko decided to withdraw from the men’s singles competition following his pre-short program warm up on 13 February 2014.

Plushenko's withdrawal was after the Sunday deadline to name a replacement which left Russia without an entry in men's singles.

[83][84][85] It was announced shortly after that Plushenko would be retiring from competitive skating,[85] but was "not ruling out" the possibility of returning for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

[citation needed] Under the Code of Points system, he has set 13 world record scores (5 in the short program, 4 in free skating, and 4 in the combined total).

Plushenko has advocated the position that both men and women should be equally allowed to use the quad jump in skating competition without gender discrimination.

[100] In 2006, Plushenko joined the political party A Just Russia, and in March 2007, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg.

[107] In August 2009, Plushenko announced his engagement to Yana Rudkovskaya, the record producer for Russian singer Dima Bilan.

[110] In March 2022, Plushenko published an Instagram video in which he endorsed Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and called it an "unavoidable special operation".