Putin promises victory in Ukraine as he swears in his fifth term as president of Russia

Vladimir Putin swore this Tuesday his fifth term as president of Russiauntil 2030, with a call to his compatriots to win “together” in the conflict in Ukraine, considered existential.

In a lavish ceremony held in the Kremlin, the 71-year-old president was sworn in and gave a brief speech to the Russian political elite and soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

“It is a great honor, a responsibility and a sacred duty“said Putin, who thanked the”heroes” who have been fighting on the front lines in Ukraine since February 2022.

“We will go through this difficult period with dignity and emerge stronger“, declared the president.

At a time of heightened tensions with Western powers over their support for Ukraine, Putin assured that Russia does not refuse a “dialogue”, but he said that “it depends on them”.

Russia ordered nuclear exercises on Monday in response to what it called threatening statements by Western leaders about a possible sending of troops to Ukraine.

“We are a great and united nation, and together we will overcome all obstacles, we will achieve everything planned, and together, we will win”Putin concluded.

He then attended a religious ceremony with Patriarch Cyril, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, a great support for his government.

A power without counterweights

In the March elections, without dissident candidates, the president, in power for almost a quarter of a century, won a resounding victory.

Putin will continue in power until 2030. And thanks to a constitutional reform he approved in 2020, he can still run for another term until 2036.

The investiture occurs two days after the anniversary of the Soviet victory against Nazi Germany, May 9, a date that has regained relevance since the beginning of the offensive against Ukraine, which Putin compares to the fight against the Third Reich in the Second War. World.

The ceremony also coincides with a more favorable moment on the front for the Russian army, after suffering humiliating defeats in 2022, in the first months of the conflict.

Russian troops intensified their offensive in eastern Ukraine and have taken several towns around the city of Avdiivka, which they managed to control in mid-February, after a tough battle that lasted months.

For its part, the Ukrainian armed forces face a shortage of ammunition and the attrition of their troops after their unsuccessful offensive in mid-2023 and the delay in the arrival of aid from Western powers. Now, they hope that the approval of a new endowment from the United States at the end of April will help them on the ground.

Instead, the Russian defense industry is firing on all cylinders to supply material to the front.

“No peace, no development, no freedom”

The re-election with more than 87% of the votes served Putin to evoke the image of a Russia “united” behind him and his army.

Western countries denounced a vote under duress, weeks after the death in prison under unclear circumstances of Alexei Navalny, Putin’s greatest rival, on February 16.

The main figures of the Russian opposition are now in exile or jail, as are hundreds of citizens who have expressed their rejection of Moscow’s offensive against kyiv.

Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, accused Putin from exile of being “liar, thief and murderer”.

With Putin “in command, our country will have neither peace, nor development, nor freedom” stated Navalnaya and criticized the offensive in Ukraine.

The Kremlin also increased its repression of sexual minorities, as it claims to defend “traditional values” against a West that it considers degenerate.

But the last few years were not without difficulties for the Russian president, who in 2023 had to crush an attempted rebellion by the former head of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who later died in a plane crash.

On the economic front, inflation persists, driven above all by the weight of military spending in the budget, and the purchasing power of the population, already affected by Western sanctions, decreases.

Furthermore, Putin is trying to shift his entire economy, highly dependent on hydrocarbon revenues, towards the Asian market, but this requires infrastructure that requires long and expensive construction.