Vladimir Putin walks back into power after taking presidential oath

VLADIMIR Putin took the oath as Russia’s president yesterday - for the third time - with an appeal for unity at the start of a six-year term in which he faces growing dissent, economic problems and political rivalries.

Parliament is expected to approve Mr Putin’s ally Dmitry Medvedev, 46, as prime minister today, completing a job swap that has left many Russians feeling disenfranchised.

Outside the Kremlin’s high red walls yesterday, riot police prevented protests by rounding up more than 120 people, including men and women in cafés wearing the white ribbons symbolising opposition to Mr Putin, 59, a day after detaining more than 400 during clashes.

In the Kremlin, 2,000 dignitaries applauded Mr Putin’s every step down a red carpet into a vast hall with gilded columns – the throne room of tsars – where he was sworn in with his right hand on a red-bound copy of the Russian constitution.

“We will achieve our goals if we are a single, united people, if we hold our fatherland dear, strengthen Russian democracy, constitutional rights and freedoms,” Mr Putin said after taking the oath for the third time. “I will do all I can to justify the faith of millions of our citizens. I consider it to be the meaning of my whole life and my obligation to serve my fatherland and our people.”

The Kremlin’s bells pealed, and the national anthem blared at the end of the ceremony, which was followed by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church blessing Mr Putin and the president taking charge of the nuclear suitcase.

Although he has remained Russia’s dominant leader for the past four years while prime minister, Mr Putin has now taken back the formal reins of power he ceded to Mr Medvedev after eight years as president.

But Mr Putin is returning with his authority weakened by months of protests that have polarised Russia and left the former KGB spy facing a battle to reassert himself or risk being sidelined by the business and political elites whose backing is vital.

“We want to, and we will, live in a democratic country,” Mr Putin declared, evoking patriotic images of Russia as a great nation and urging people to show a sense of responsibility and national pride to make the country stronger.

Mr Putin made no mention of the protest movement in his speech and no promises of political reform in a series of decrees he signed after the ceremony, most of them focused on economic goals and efforts to improve living standards.

Despite his pledge, riot police, nervous after battling protesters at an anti-Putin rally on Sunday, cracked down on the slightest sign of dissent on the streets of central Moscow, many of which were almost empty.

At least 22 protesters were led away when a crowd of more than 100 started shouting “Russia without Putin” a short distance from the Kremlin.

Pavel Kopilkov, 18, a student, said: “This shows that Putin is scared of dissatisfied citizens. Although there are not so many of us, there are not so few either.”

Dozens of others were detained by police on a boulevard near the route of Mr Putin’s motorcade to the ceremony, including some who had been sitting outside a French bistro wearing the white ribbon of protest on their jackets and coats.

“This is shameful. This is not how you celebrate a holiday – this is how you celebrate seizing power,” liberal opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said shortly before he was detained.