Vladimir Putin begins his fifth term as Russian president in an opulent Kremlin inauguration Tuesday, after destroying his political opponents, launching a devastating war in Ukraine and consolidating all power in his hands.
\nAlready in office for nearly a quarter-century and the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin, Putin\u2019s new term doesn\u2019t expire until 2030, when he is constitutionally eligible to run for another six years.
\nRussian forces are gaining ground in Ukraine, deploying scorched-earth tactics as Kyiv grapples with shortages of men and ammunition. Both sides are taking heavy casualties.
\nAt home, Putin’s popularity is closely tied to improving living standards for ordinary Russians.
\nHe began his term in 2018 by promising to get Russia into the top five global economies, vowing it should be \u201cmodern and dynamic.\u201d Instead, Russia’s economy has pivoted to a war footing, and authorities are spending record amounts on defense.
\nAnalysts say now that Putin has secured another six years in power, the government could take the unpopular steps of raising taxes to fund the war and pressure more men to join the military.
\nAt the start of a new term, the Russian government is routinely dissolved so that Putin can name a new prime minister and Cabinet.
\nLast year, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu came under pressure over his conduct of the war, with mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launching withering criticism against him for shortages of ammunition for his private contractors fighting in Ukraine. Prigozhin’s brief uprising in June against the Defense Ministry represented the biggest threat to Putin’s rule.
\nHis greatest political foe, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony in February. Other prominent critics have either been imprisoned or have fled the country, and even some of his opponents abroad fear for their security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vladimir Putin begins his fifth term as Russian president in an opulent Kremlin inauguration Tuesday, after destroying his political opponents, launching a devastating war in Ukraine and consolidating all power in his hands. Already in office for nearly a quarter-century and the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin, Putin\u2019s new term doesn\u2019t expire until 2030, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21123,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21115\/revisions\/21123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}