Russian state television showed the 65-year-old leader arise from his office, don a suit jacket and walk down the long redlined Kremlin halls to a waiting car. In a lavish ceremony of pomp and splendour, Putin then took the oath of office in the resplendent pink marble Andreyevsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, the throne room of Russia’s czars. In an apparent bid to show the breadth of Putin’s popularity, activists and volunteers from Putin’s reelection campaign joined official dignitaries among about 6,000 guests. “We don’t have the right to allow the stability we have attained to lead to complacency,” Putin said then. Whether Putin intends significant economic reform could become clearer as he forms his government in the coming weeks.

Source: National Post May 07, 2018 12:06 UTC