Putin to be sworn in for fourth presidential term tomorrow

After more than 18 years in power, Vladimir Putin is a symbol of Russia’s return to the international stage, at the cost of strong tensions with the West and a clear deterioration of human rights conditions.

Putin, who is set to be sworn in for his fourth presidential term on Monday after winning over 76 percent of the votes in the elections on March 18, holds the keys to the Kremlin until 2024, when he will be 72 years old.

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Putin, a former KGB officer, came to power in 2000, replacing Boris Yeltsin as president of a then unstable and economically weak country. A large number of compatriots praise him for bringing stability and progress to the country thanks to oil revenues, while critics condemn him for restricting human rights and media freedoms.

On the international stage, he has sought to restore Russian influence in the world, weakened after the collapse of the USSR, which he called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” and the chaotic years of Boris Yeltsin’s rule.

In 2014, he began to restore a “great Russia” by annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which he did through the intervention of Russian special forces and a referendum organized a few days later, deemed illegal by Kyiv and the West.

This operation increased his reputation at home but triggered the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. The West also accuses Moscow of militarily supporting the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine, which the Kremlin denies.

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As a great sports enthusiast, the Russian president aimed to showcase Russia as a sporting superpower by organizing the FIFA World Cup.

Russia was the host of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the most expensive in history, but after the release of the McLaren report in 2016, Kremlin dreams were shattered by allegations of systematic doping, which the latter denies.

When Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999 and appointed him as the prime minister to succeed him, Putin had already established himself as the top man in the country, the only one capable of guaranteeing security after his departure.

After an easy victory in the 2000 elections, Putin consolidates power by relying on the “power structures” (intelligence service, police, and military) and close associates.

He soon excludes oligarchs from the political game, business people who became wealthy during the murky privatizations of the 1990s, and sends dissenters behind bars, such as Yukos oil company owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The Kremlin also tightens control over television networks that disturb it with their libertarian tone inherited from the 90s.

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Since he could not serve more than two presidential terms according to the constitution, in 2008 he entrusted the Kremlin to his prime minister Dmitry Medvedev and took over his position.

At the end of 2011, he announced his return to the Kremlin for a new term, which has since been extended to six years, prompting a large wave of protests in the country.

However, the protest movement weakened when he again won the presidential elections overwhelmingly in the spring of 2012. After that, laws were passed in parliament that the opposition claims stifle freedom and allow for stronger repression of any form of protest.