Vladimir Putin has been sworn in as Russia's president for a fifth consecutive term. He took the oath of office at around noon local time on Tuesday (May 7) in the ornate St. Andrew's Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, AFP reports.
Earlier, the presidential election was held last March, in which Putin won with 87 percent of the vote.
The report said that all state and private television channels in the country broadcast the swearing-in ceremony live. All high-ranking Russian government officials and foreign diplomats were invited to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the 71-year-old leader. Despite widespread bitterness surrounding the military operation in Ukraine, the French ambassador, Pierre Levy, was present at the ceremony.
Meanwhile, the ambassadors of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic were absent from the ceremony. The foreign ministries of these three countries said that their ambassadors had been ordered not to attend the swearing-in ceremony in protest at the "unjust" operation by Russian forces in Ukraine.
Incidentally, Vladimir Putin began his career by joining the Soviet Union's intelligence agency, the KGB, in 1996. He then became the interim president of Russia for the first time in 1999. He assumed full power in the same year. Later, Putin won the presidential election for the first time in the 2000 presidential election, receiving 53 percent of the vote. Then, in the 2004 election, he became president again, receiving 71.3 percent of the vote.
Since the Russian constitution does not allow a person to serve more than two terms as president, he nominated his loyalist Dmitry Medvedev as a candidate in the 2008 election and himself became a candidate for prime minister. Both Medvedev and Putin won that election. Then, he won again in the 2012 election, increased the presidential term from 4 to 6 years and abolished the constitutional provision that allows a president to serve more than two terms. Former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was the longest-serving president in Russia, ruling for 28 years. If Putin can complete his term after taking the oath this time, he will be able to surpass Stalin.
