Triumphal Putin is inaugurated for fifth term as Russian president
Triumphal Putin is inaugurated for fifth term as Russian president
In the gilded Andreyevsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace where Russian czars were once crowned, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday swore the oath of allegiance on Russia’s constitution at his inauguration for a fifth term as president. The traditional pomp and ceremony conveyed his might as Russia’s supreme, uncontested leader for the past quarter-century.
Bristling with optimism about his ongoing war against Ukraine, Putin, 71, declared he would place Russia’s security above all else and promised that the country would be victorious. Russia is seeking to conquer and annex four regions of southeastern Ukraine, in addition to Crimea, which Russia invaded and illegally annexed in 2014.
“We are one, great nation,” Putin declared in his inauguration speech. “Together we will overcome all obstacles. We will fulfill everything we have planned. Together we will win.” A 30-gun salute followed his remarks.
As he often does in his speeches, Putin, who has accused the West of instigating Russia’s war on Ukraine, used the occasion to demand respect from Western leaders. He criticized their “aggression” against Russia, stating that talks regarding security and strategic stability could take place only if the West changes its ways.
“The choice is theirs,” he said. “Do they intend to continue trying to contain Russia, continue the policy of aggression, continuous pressure on our country for years, or look for a path to cooperation and peace?”
Putin continued: “Dialogue, including on security and strategic stability, is possible, but not from a position of strength. Without any arrogance, swagger and claims to exclusivity, but only on equal terms and with due respect for each other’s interests.”
Since 2008 when he completed a second full term as president, Putin repeatedly has circumvented constitutional term limits to remain in power. First, he swapped jobs with then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and then swapped again four years later, returning to the presidency. In 2020, he engineered constitutional amendments allowing him to run for two more six-year terms. His term that began Tuesday runs until 2030, and he is eligible to run for at least another, lasting through 2036 when he would be 83 years old.
This year, he claimed overwhelming victory in an election that was widely condemned as failing to meet basic democratic standards, with genuine opposition candidates barred from running and the Kremlin wielding nearly total control over the media.
In his inaugural address, Putin held out Russia’s stability — personified by his grip on Russia since he became acting president in 1999 — as the key goal of the Russian state, effectively equating his own political interests with those of all Russians.
“It is important for us not to forget the lessons of history, not to forget about the tragic cost of internal unrest and upheaval,” he said. “Therefore, our state, social, political system must be strong, absolutely stable and stable to any challenges and threats, ensure the progressiveness and stability of the development of the unity and independence of the country.”
Putin, who is steadily re-engineering Russia as a conservative militarized nation implacably hostile to the West, played on his favorite theme of Russia as a unique millennium-old civilization. He vowed to proceed with his previously announced plan to create a new elite elevating those who fought in the war on Ukraine or worked in support of Russia’s war effort.
He said he would “ensure that Russians who have proved their loyalty to their Motherland take leading positions in politics and economics.”
“Today, in fact, we are answering to our thousand-year history and our ancestors,” he said. “They took seemingly inaccessible heights, because they always put the Motherland first, knew that it is possible to achieve truly great goals only together with their country and their people, and created a world power, our Fatherland, and achieved such triumphs that inspire us today.”
To swear the oath, Putin placed his right hand on the constitution, a red tome that was borne with ceremony into the hall by a white-gloved, goose-stepping member of the Russian presidential regiment, offering a veneer of constitutional legitimacy in a country where the rule of law has all but vanished.
Russian state television offered breathless second-by-second coverage as Putin walked through the long corridors of his Kremlin apartments, pausing briefly to examine a painting, then continuing under a black umbrella to his newly updated Auras Senat limousine, which drove him to the palace for the ceremony.
The weather was rainy and at one point snow fell, unusual in May in Moscow.
On his way, Putin passed by mounted members of the presidential regiment, with their swords drawn and their heads tilted back, turning their faces to follow his every move — a ceremony of such grandiose pomp that it evoked a royal event.
After the ceremony, Putin attended a church service in the Cathedral of the Annunciation.
As Putin met with members of the government Monday, preparing to begin his new term, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced it would stage tactical nuclear missile drills in the near future, accusing Western officials of escalatory rhetoric over the Ukraine war. Russia’s Foreign Ministry also summoned the British and French ambassadors for a scolding.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the drills were in response to French and British statements on the war in Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron has been vocal in refusing to rule out sending ground forces to Ukraine. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said last week that Ukraine is now entitled to use British weapons to strike Russian territory.
Russia’s 1993 constitution, enacted under President Boris Yeltsin, was Russia’s first attempt to establish the rule of law and democracy. It contained lofty commitments to free speech, the right to protest, free elections and human rights, declaring that people’s “rights and freedoms shall be the supreme value.”
Putin has steadily unraveled all of these since he was first elected in 2000, after being handed the mantle when Yeltsin resigned on the last day of 1999, naming Putin, then prime minister, as acting president.
Golos, an independent Russian election monitoring group, said after Putin’s reelection in March that Russia had never seen a vote “so much out of line with constitutional standards,” adding that the basic constitutional safeguards against usurpation of power had been dismantled.
“The campaign was conducted in a situation where the foundational articles of the Russian constitution, which guarantee political rights and freedoms, were essentially not in effect,” the group said.
The March election was tightly managed to bar any rival opposed to the Ukraine war, with the Kremlin maintaining tight control over the central electoral commission, courts and media.
Six years after Putin’s 2018 inauguration, Tuesday’s event marks just how much has changed. Putin’s main political rival, Alexei Navalny died in February in an Arctic prison colony, not quite four years after surviving an assassination attempt with a nerve agent, and three years after being arrested and imprisoned upon returning to Russia from recovering in Germany
In the past six years, Putin also has carried out a massive campaign of political repression, crushing the opposition, jailing activists, cultural figures, bloggers, journalists and politicians, and outlawing the LGBTQ+ “international movement.”
On Monday, Russian officials said six people were killed when an explosive drone hit a shuttle bus carrying workers in Belgorod, a city close to the Ukrainian border. Attacks on Belgorod and other border areas have highlighted Putin’s failure to prevent the war from spilling back onto Russian territory.
Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.