Putin emphasizes Russia's domestic challenges as he launches another, and perhaps final, term

Vladimir Putin was sworn in for another six years as Russian president on May 7 in the Grand Kremlin Palace's ornately-decorated Andreyevsky Hall. </caption>

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin, already the longest serving leader of Russia since Stalin, launched into a fourth presidential term on Mondaypromising to focus on improving Russians’ lives at home but without backing down in his confrontation with the West.

Putin, in a brief inaugural address to thousands of invited guests at the Kremlin, emphasized the work he has to do at home, nodding to the long-term challenges Russia faces with a stagnant economy and a declining birth rate. He said Russia needed to expand freedoms for entrepreneurs and scientists, to invest in regional development, and to raise the quality of education and health care. A particular focus on “traditional family values,” he said, would ensure as many births as possible. 

“Russia is a strong, active, and influential participant in international life,” Putin said. “But now we must use all the means we at our disposal to, first, resolve domestic, most vital challenges of development.”

As are many of Putin’s events, Monday’s inauguration was meticulously choreographed for a television audience. 

Before his speech, the 65-year-old leader arose from his office desk, donned a suit jacket and walked, for considerable time and with signature swagger, down the redlined Kremlin halls to a Russian-made limousine, state television showed. Putin then took the oath of office in the resplendent pink marble Andreyevsky Hall, the throne room of Russia’s czars in the Grand Kremlin Palace. The lavish ceremony was full of pomp and splendor, featuring cavalry in brocaded livery and the simultaneous firing of cannons. 

Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik

Pool photo via AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a service held by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Krill, right, in the Annunciation Cathedral after the inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin in Moscow, on Monday.

In an apparent bid to show the breadth of Putin’s popularity, activists and volunteers from Putin’s reelection campaign joined official dignitaries among some 6,000 guests. Also attending was American action star Steven Seagal, whom Putin presented with a Russian passport in 2016, and the leather-clad leader of a pro-Kremlin motorcycle club who is known as “The Surgeon.” Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder also came, prominently standing on the front row besides Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Orthodox Church, and Dmitry Medvedev, who served as prime minister in the last term and has been nominated for a new term. 

“The purpose of my life will be, as before, service to the people, to our fatherland,” Putin said after he swore on Russia’s constitution. Under the constitution, this six-year term is supposed to be Putin’s last, but speculation has mounted in Moscow that he will seek to hold on to power in some way after 2024, perhaps by taking on a new, leader-of-the-nation role. 

In his annual state-of-the-nation address, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced March 1 Russia had successfully tested new nuclear-powered weapons that could avoid any missile defense systems.

For now, Putin’s dominance of the nation’s political system seems ironclad. His popularity surged after he annexed the territory of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and many Russians have accepted his call to unite around the Kremlin amid the confrontation with the West. To his supporters, Western sanctions and accusations of Putin’s complicity in U.S. election interference or Olympic doping are simply means of keeping their country down. 

In his patriotic inauguration speech, Putin focused entirely on Russia, but hinted at the standoff with the West when he said, “The country’s security and defense capabilities are reliably ensured. We will continue giving these issues the constant attention they need.” 

[Tens of thousands protest Putin’s new term, 1,600 arrested]

And while Putin’s foreign-policy legacy after nearly two decades in power reflects a rise in Russia’s geopolitical ambitions that many Russians support, his accomplishments at home are less clear cut. Putin benefited from rising oil prices early in his tenure, but since 2008, Russia’s stagnant economy has grown at an average of just over 1 percent a year. 

Showcasing Russia’s manufacturing potential, Putin swapped his armored Mercedes-Benz for the domestically-made Cortege on Monday. Officials and analysts took to Russian state television to praise the car, hailing the automobile’s entrance on the market as an achievement for the Russian people. 

Sergei Guneyev

AFP/Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin walks down the stairs following his inauguration ceremony at the Kremlin's Sobornaya Square in Moscow on May 7, 2018.

In his state-of-the-nation address in March, Putin’s promised to halve the poverty rate over the next six years and to double government spending on roads, health care and regional development.

Whether Putin intends significant economic reform could become clearer as he forms his government in the coming weeks. Relatively liberal former finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, could rejoin the government, analysts say, but the hard liners within the Kremlin prepared to keep up the confrontation with the West are unlikely to lose their influence. 

For now, however, Putin’s promises to improve Russian lives at home have been overshadowed by conflict with the West — with everything from nuclear saber rattling to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England for which Britain blames the Kremlin. There are some signs that Russians are growing impatient with slow economic growth and public corruption. Protests in the aftermath of a Siberian mall fire that killed 60 led to the resignation of a regional governor in April. Anti-Putin rallies organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny across the vast country on Sunday brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets, and more than 1,600 of them were arrested. 

Natalia Abbakumova contributed reporting.

Read more

Sanctions, Syria hit home in Russia, but people aren’t turning against Putin

Putin wants a shining legacy. He has to solve 3 problems first 

Young Russians are Vladi­mir Putin’s biggest fans 

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Read Again https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-launches-another-term-as-russias-president-it-might-even-be-his-last/2018/05/07/0d5d2460-4f14-11e8-85c1-9326c4511033_story.html

Bagikan Berita Ini