Putin was sworn in as the president of Russia for the fifth time

International Desk:  Vladimir Putin has taken oath as the President of Russia for the fifth time. He was sworn in at the ornate St. Andrew's Hall in Moscow's Grand Kremlin Palace around 1:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday. 

This leader got 87.28 percent votes in the presidential election held last March. All government and private television channels telecast the swearing-in ceremony live.

Putin arrived at the Grand Kremlin Palace in a luxury motorcade. He then walked through the red-carpeted corridors of the palace to St. Andrew's Hall. It was there that Putin swore in his hand on the constitution to be the president of Russia for another six years with extraordinary powers. Then he gave a short speech. 

At this time, Putin also received blessings from the Father of the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Meanwhile, the United States, the United Kingdom and most European Union countries did not send envoys to Putin's swearing-in ceremony. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US did not consider the Russian election to be free and fair. So no one is going to Putin's swearing-in ceremony.

The UK and Canada have said they will not send anyone to attend the event. The German Foreign Ministry said that they will not participate in it either.

A European Union spokesman said 20 EU member states would boycott the event. However, 7 EU countries including France, Hungary and Slovakia participated in the event.

In 1996, Vladimir Putin joined the Soviet Union's intelligence agency, the KGB, as a high-ranking official. Later, he became the provisional president of Russia in 1999 due to the brutality of the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin retired from politics that year handing over power to Putin.

Later, in the 2000 presidential election, Putin won the presidential election for the first time with 53 percent of the vote. In the 2004 election, he got 71.3 percent of the votes and became the president again.

Like the United States, Russia's constitution did not allow a person to serve more than two terms as president. Therefore, in the 2008 election, he nominated his loyal follower Dmitry Medvedev as a candidate and himself became the prime ministerial candidate. Both Medvedev and Putin won that election.

But after winning the 2012 elections again, he increased the term of the president from 4 years to 6 years and canceled the obligation of not running for more than two presidential elections. Later he won the 2018 election as well.

Former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin holds the record for longest-serving president in Russia. He was in power for 28 consecutive years. If he completes this term after taking oath, Putin will be able to overtake Stalin.

 

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