On Tuesday, May 7, Vladimir Putin, who was honored as Russia’s tsar at his presidential swearing-in ceremony for a new six-year term and, if he completes it, will become Russia’s longest-reigning ruler since Empress Catherine the Great, had a two-fold message for the West – the Kremlin is ready for negotiations, but Russia is preparing for victory in Ukraine, reports “Reuters”.
Russia’s elite waited in the St. Andrew’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace for Putin to walk down the Kremlin’s corridors to his throne.
“We do not give up dialogue with Western countries,”
Putin said after being sworn in, adding that he was open to talks on security and strategic stability, but only if there was no “arrogance” on the part of the US and its allies.
Russia’s supreme leader promised victory and said all Russians were now “responsible for our millennia of history and our ancestors.”
He left the ceremony to the music of “Slava” from Mikhail Glinka’s opera “Life for the Tsar”.
“The authority of our president has become stronger than ever before – stronger than the American president, stronger even than the Russian tsar. So much rests on the shoulders of our president,” said Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.
Since 2022, when Putin invaded Ukraine, relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated, with the West seeing him as an autocrat and a war criminal, while Putin sees the war as part of an existential struggle with the West, which he believes has invaded Russia’s sphere of influence.
The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, told Reuters that Putin’s speech was an invitation to the West to start a dialogue “with equal cooperation, but on the other hand, a firm belief that Russia will ensure its own development and security,” Naryshkin said.
But he added that if the West does not want to talk, then the West must think.
The signal came just a day after Putin ordered tactical nuclear weapons drills following Moscow’s assertions of threats from France, Britain and the United States.
Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Putin, told Reuters that Putin had brought stability to Russia – “you can ask anyone on the street.” He said the West “will understand that Putin is stability for Russia, not some new person.”
Also read: The US and most EU countries will boycott Putin’s inauguration
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