Putin starts fifth term as Russian president with gilded ceremony
Vladimir Putin has been sworn in as president of Russia for the fifth time, with France one of the only Nato members to send an envoy to the ceremony.
Putin is now set to hold power in Russia until at least 2030, which would make him the longest-serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.
In a terse speech on Tuesday, Putin blamed the West for triggering his invasion of Ukraine and said that Russia needed to stay strong.
“We’re a united and great nation and together we will overcome all obstacles, realise everything we have planned and, together, we will win,” he said during his inauguration in the golden Grand Kremlin Palace.
He was watched by top Russian officials and foreign dignitaries including ambassadors from allied countries such as Iran and China.
The US, Britain and most EU states refused to send ambassadors to the ceremony because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and because they say he rigged the election in March which he won with 87 per cent of the vote.
“We certainly did not consider that election free and fair but he is the president of Russia and he is going to continue in that capacity,” said Matthew Miller, a US state department official.
France, though, ordered its ambassador to attend. Speaking alongside visiting Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday, Emmanual Macron said that France was not at war with Russia and he had no “desire for regime change” in Moscow.
Hungary and Slovakia, which have both called for Ukraine to negotiate a peace deal with Russia, also sent their ambassadors to the ceremony.
Other notable attendees were Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya who is rumoured to be ill, and Steven Seagal, the American action film star who now lives in Moscow and is accused of being a Kremlin stooge.
In a heavily choreographed ceremony, Putin was filmed walking down a long corridor to the hall where 2,500 attendees were waiting to watch his swearing-in. At one point, he stopped and bent down to read an information notice under a painting.
After the ceremony, Russian artillery fired a 30-gun salute in honour of Putin and hundreds of soldiers in full dress uniform paraded.
Putin then walked to the chapel inside the Kremlin where Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, blessed him and compared him to Alexander Nevsky, considered one of Russia’s greatest leaders for fighting off raids by Teuton knights in the 13th century.
“God himself entrusted the service of Russia to you,” he said. Patriarch Kirill is a long-standing ally of Putin and supports his war in Ukraine.
In a statement, Ukraine’s foreign ministry called Putin’s swearing-in an “illusion”.
“This is a near lifelong stay in power of a person who has turned the Russian Federation into an aggressor state and the ruling regime into a dictatorship,” it said.
Putin’s inauguration has also sparked speculation that he will reshuffle his government ministers. Many of the 71-year-old Putin’s most loyal and longest-serving ministers are also in their 70s.
Last month, police arrested Timur Ivanov, Russia’s deputy defence minister, on corruption charges. Some analysts have said that Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, may be vulnerable.
Putin has been Russian leader since New Year’s Eve 1999, when he took over from the bloated and frequently drunk Boris Yeltsin. Analysts have said that he now sees his legacy as defeating NATO-backed Ukraine and remaking Russia as a global superpower.
