The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, formalized this Tuesday in the Kremlin his new inauguration, the fifth since he took over the reins of the country at the end of the year in 1999 and which will keep him in power for another six years, until 2030. The president has sworn before the Russian Constitution to “respect and protect the rights and freedoms of the citizen” in this new legislature, the first with the opponent Alexei Navalny dead and the rest of the dissidents in exile or in prison. His new mandate, after winning the elections last March with an unprecedented 87.28% of the votes – a process without guarantees – also begins marked by the stagnation of the invasion of Ukraine in its third year of bloodshed. . “Together we will win,” the Russian leader added at the end of his speech, with the purpose of including all Russians as one of the sides in that war.
The Kremlin divides Russians between faithful and traitors. In the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, Putin has warned the Russian elite that under his government there will be no room for the opposition. “We must keep in mind the tragic cost of unrest and internal turmoil, which is why the political system of the Russian Federation must be stable,” the president said before a wide circle of politicians, businessmen, military personnel and other personalities whose presence there It is no guarantee of being untouchable in Putin’s Russia.
“Our state and socio-political system must be strong and absolutely resistant to any challenge and threat,” added the Russian leader. All those who dared to criticize him in these years, from the liberal opposition to ultranationalism, have died, been arrested or ostracized, including popular heroes such as the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the general who raised the defensive line that avoided Russian defeat, Sergei Surovikin.
The president has appealed to history and his ancestors to claim an imperial mission, the greatness of what he calls his “country-civilization.” “They conquered seemingly inaccessible heights. They knew that it was only possible to achieve greatness with the country and the people united. They created a world power, our homeland, and their triumphs inspire us,” stated the head of state after asserting that his search for greatness must continue: “Today we must respond to our ancient history, to our ancestors.”
“It is, above all, about saving the people,” Putin has indicated as one of his priorities, and has trusted that “support for centuries-old family values and traditions will continue to unite civil and religious organizations, political parties and all levels of Government.”
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Putin’s inauguration opens a new chapter in power. The Russian State is a presidential system and its cabinet of ministers ceases on the day of the inauguration to appoint a new one. The profile that Putin chooses for the prime minister, currently the technocrat Mikhail Mishustin, and his minister, especially whether or not he follows that of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, will give a clue as to how Putin sees the future of a war with no clear horizon.
The West de facto recognizes Putin
In the elections last March, where Putin swept, the authorities did not allow any independent candidate to run and the president’s only three rivals were chosen by parties loyal to the Kremlin that never vote against his proposals in parliament. In addition, the opposition denounced massive electoral fraud in the elections and Moscow vetoed for the first time the presence of international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
“You, citizens of Russia, have confirmed – in the elections – that the course of the country is correct,” stated the Russian president at one point in his brief speech to the nation, where he maintained a more serious and less euphoric tone than the which he showed in his interventions at the end of last year after having stopped the Ukrainian counteroffensive: “I am sure that we will go through this difficult historical period with dignity, we will become strong and we will implement our large-scale plans and projects in the long term.”
Putin has insisted in his speech that Moscow is willing to dialogue with the West “including on issues of security and strategic stability”, but “only on equal terms and respecting each other’s interests.”
However, one of Putin’s inalienable goals is to maintain Moscow’s influence in the countries it considers part of its sphere of influence. For example, Ukraine, whose approach to Europe is a red line for Moscow, as demonstrated by Moscow’s fruitless negotiations with the United States and the community bloc until the days before the invasion.
“The choice is yours.” [de Occidente]. Do they intend to continue trying to stop Russia’s development? ”Putin declared during his speech, in which he gave another wink to China, his great support today. “We will continue working to form a multipolar world order and an egalitarian and indivisible security system together with our partners in Eurasian integration and other centers of sovereign development,” added the president.
The vast majority of Western diplomatic missions showed their rejection of Putin by not attending the ceremony, including the Spanish one, although the president’s new presidency has been recognized by those same countries. However, other diplomats were present at the event.
According to the American media Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFERL), banned by the Kremlin, ambassadors from a handful of European Union countries attended the event. Not only from Viktor Orbán’s “ally” Hungary, but also from Slovakia, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and France, despite the open confrontation between the Elysée and Moscow over the French proposal to deploy troops in Ukraine.
“The participation of our ambassador does not mean that we consider Putin’s election legitimate or that we recognize his presidency, it only means that we have an embassy in Moscow,” a source from the French embassy told RFERL.
The investiture ceremony continued inside the Kremlin grounds with a small military event in its square and a religious service in the Cathedral of the Annunciation led by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, one of the great defenders of the offensive against the Ukrainian people inside Russia. Security measures have been extreme. Central Moscow was surrounded by police and authorities cut off telephone communications during the inauguration.
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