Vladimir Putin made his fifth trip through the Grand Kremlin Palace to the St Andrew’s Throne Hall. There, he promised to do his job and became Russia’s president for another six years.
We are one strong group of people. “We will work together to overcome challenges and achieve our goals. We will succeed together,” President Putin said to a group of important people.
Vladimir Putin may have recognized the red carpet route. A lot of things have changed since President Putin first became president in May 2000.
A long time ago, President Putin promised to “keep and improve democracy” and to “look after Russia. ”
It has been twenty-four years since the leader of the Kremlin started a war against Ukraine. Russia has suffered a lot of losses in this war. At home, President Putin has been making democracy weaker, not stronger: he has been putting people who disagree with him in jail and getting rid of the rules that limit his power.
Fiona Hill, who used to work for the White House, thinks that Putin now sees himself as a powerful leader like a Russian king.
“If we think about Putin’s first two terms as president, I think we would have a pretty good opinion of him. ” He helped the country to become stable politically and financially strong again. The Russian economy and system were doing very well compared to before.
The fighting in Ukraine, which started with the takeover of Crimea 10 years ago, has greatly changed the path of events. He’s acting like an emperor instead of being practical.
It’s amazing to think that since Vladimir Putin became leader, America has had five different presidents and Britain has had seven prime ministers.
For almost 25 years, Mr. Putin has been in charge of Russia and has definitely left his legacy. In the past, people didn’t talk much about “Brezhnevism”, “Gorbachevism”, or “Yeltsinism”.
“Andrei Kolesnikov from the Carnegie Eurasia Russia Centre says that we have another -ism in our history: Stalinism. ”
I think Putinism is like a new version of Stalinism. He acts like Stalin. He has a lot of control, like Stalin did. He likes to use strict political control. Just like Stalin, he is willing to stay in power until the end of his life.
The problem for the West is how to handle a Russian leader who is becoming more and more controlling and wants to make Russia powerful again. He’s like a king in today’s world and he has nuclear weapons.
Fiona Hill thinks there is a lot we can do about nuclear weapons. “China, India, and Japan are very worried about Putin’s threatening behavior in Ukraine with nuclear weapons, and they have strongly opposed it. ” We can control Russia by making a plan with other countries to stop them from talking about using nuclear weapons.
“Maybe that’s a way we can handle Vladimir Putin, who is like a rogue leader in many ways. ” We need to make it harder for him to do the things he wants to do.
Vladimir Putin won over 87% of the votes in the March presidential election. But, no one really tried to compete with him in the election, which was not seen as fair or open to everyone.
To find out, I drove 70 miles from Moscow to the town of Kashira. There is a really big picture of Putin on the side of a building.
In Kashira, Big Vladimir is keeping an eye on you.
Valentina, an older woman selling flowers on the side of the road, says she likes him.
“Putin has good thoughts and helps many people. ” Yes, our pensions are not very large. “But he can’t fix everything all at once. ”
“I want to point out that he has had almost 25 years. ”
“But I don’t know who would come after Putin,” Valentina answers.
“You have to think like everyone else in Russia,” says Victoria as she walks past the picture of Putin.
My husband gets really angry if I say anything bad about Putin. He even said he would divorce me if I do. He really likes Putin a lot. He says life would be really hard here without Putin, like it was in the 1990s.
When I ask someone named Alexander what he thinks about the president, he says it can be risky to share an opinion. No response
Most people I talk to say they don’t even notice Putin’s portrait when they walk past it. They are accustomed to it.
Just like they are used to one man leading Russia and there is no sign of change in the Kremlin.