Vladimir Putin took the oath of office on a Tuesday in May 2024, inside the gilded Saint Andrew’s Hall in the Kremlin. DW reported that the 71-year-old was sworn in for another six-year term after a March victory that outside observers say was heavily manipulated.
“We will pass through this difficult period with dignity and become even stronger,” Putin said. He called Russians “a united and great nation” and described serving Russia as “a huge honor, responsibility, and sacred duty.” He also said the country was open to better relations with what he termed “the world’s majority”, while its state had to stay resistant to threats and challenges.
How the tenure was built
By DW’s count Putin has effectively held office for nearly a quarter of a century, either as president or as prime minister, which makes him the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin. The constitution, since altered, barred him from a third consecutive term. So in 2008 President Dmitry Medvedev, who had served as Putin’s premier, appointed him prime minister. The arrangement was known at the time by the chess term “castling”. Putin stayed in charge as Russia’s political leader until he was elected president again in 2012.
The new term runs out in 2030. If he is still in power then, DW noted, he will have ruled longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century, and he would still be constitutionally eligible to run for another six years.
DW wrote that Putin’s aim throughout has been to restore Moscow’s grip on its neighbors, above all the former Soviet republics. Since the invasion of Ukraine, it added, Russia has held pariah status in the West.
The man and the biography
CNBC TV18 sketched his background in a photo gallery published in February 2022, as Russian forces entered Ukraine. Putin was born on October 7, 1952, in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, and spent his childhood in a communal flat that three families shared. He worked as an intelligence officer for the KGB before becoming president. The gallery described a career marked by territorial tensions in Eastern Europe and crackdowns on political opponents.
A voice from exile
On the day of the inauguration, Yulia Navalnaya, the exiled widow of Alexei Navalny, posted a video urging his supporters to keep up their opposition to Putin. She called him “a liar, a thief, and a murderer.”
Sources
- Russia's Putin sworn in for new six-year term
- Russia-Ukraine Crisis: Lesser-known facts about Vladimir Putin, Russia's longest serving leader since Stalin – CNBC TV18
