Foreign News
Little chance of change as Vladimir Putin is sworn in again
For the fifth time Vladimir Putin will be taking the long walk through the Grand Kremlin Palace to the St Andrew’s Throne Hall. There he will take the oath of office and be sworn in as Russia’s president for a new six-year term
The route may be familiar, but much has changed since Putin’s first inauguration ceremony in May 2000. Back then, President Putin pledged to “preserve and develop democracy” and to “take care of Russia.”
Twenty-four years on, the Kremlin leader is waging war against Ukraine; a war in which Russia has suffered heavy losses. At home, instead of developing democracy, President Putin has been curtailing it: jailing critics, removing all checks and balances on his power.
“Putin thinks of himself now as Vladimir the Great, as a Russian tsar,” believes Fiona Hill, a former White House national security advisor. “If we took ourselves back to his first two presidential terms, I think we’d have a fairly favourable assessment of Putin. He stabilised the country politically and made it solvent again. The Russian economy and system were performing better than at any other previous time in its history. “The war in Ukraine, going back to the annexation of Crimea 10 years ago, has dramatically changed that trajectory. He’s turned himself into an imperialist instead of a pragmatist.”
It’s remarkable to think that since Vladimir Putin first came to power, America has been through five different presidents and Britain has had seven prime ministers.
After nearly a quarter of a century running Russia, Mr Putin has certainly made his mark. In the past, people rarely spoke of “Brezhnevism”, “Gorbachevisim” or “Yeltsinism”. But Putinism: that’s a thing.
Most people have grown used to one man running Russia and no imminent prospect of change in the Kremlin (BBC)
“We have one more -ism in our history: Stalinism,” says Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Eurasia Russia Centre.
“I would say that Putinism is one more incarnation of Stalinism. He behaves like [former Soviet dictator] Stalin. His power is personalised like in Stalin’s time. He prefers to use a lot of political repressions. And like Stalin he is ready to keep himself in power until the physical end.”
The challenge, for the West, is how to deal with an increasingly authoritarian Russian leader determined to restore what he sees as Russia’s greatness; a modern-day tsar… with nuclear weapons.
“On the issue of nuclear weapons, there’s an awful lot that we can do,” believes Fiona Hill. “Some countries, like China, India, Japan, have been extraordinarily nervous when Putin has engaged in nuclear sabre-rattling in Ukraine and have pushed back against that. We can enforce restraint on Russia by creating an international framework for pushing back on this wild and speculative talk about using nuclear weapons.
“Perhaps that is something of a model for how we can deal with Vladimir Putin, who in many respects is something of a rogue leader. We need to create a more constraining environment, less permissive for the kinds of actions that he wants to undertake.”
Officially Vladimir Putin won more than 87% of the vote in the March presidential election. However, he’d faced no serious challenger in a contest widely seen as neither free not fair.
So how do Russians view the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin?
“We don’t know who would come next if Putin goes,” says Valentina
To find out I drive to the town of Kashira, 70 miles from Moscow. Here a gigantic Putin portrait, a massive mural, takes up one whole side of an apartment block.
In Kashira Big Vladimir is watching you. “I like him,” says pensioner Valentina who is selling flowers by the roadside. “Putin has good ideas and does a lot for people. True, our pensions aren’t big. But he can’t fix everything in one go.”
“He’s had nearly 25 years,” I point out.
“But we don’t know who’d come next [if Putin goes],” Valentina replies.
“In Russia we’re all expected to think the same way,” says Victoria, who is walking past the Putin mural. “If I say anything against Putin my husband says: ‘You criticise Putin again and I’ll divorce you!’ He’s mad about him. He says that if it wasn’t for Putin life here would be as tough as in the 1990s.”
When I ask another passer-by, Alexander, what he thinks of the president, he replies: “It can be dangerous now to express an opinion. No comment.”
Most of the people I talk to say that they walk past Putin’s portrait without even noticing it now. They’re used to it.
Just like they’ve grown used to one man running Russia and no imminent prospect of change in the Kremlin.
(BBC)
Sustained heavy gunfire and loud explosions have been heard in Niger near the international airport outside the capital, Niamey.
Multiple eyewitness accounts and videos showed air defence systems apparently engaging unidentified projectiles in the early hours of Thursday.
The situation later calmed down, reports say, with an official reportedly saying the situation was now under control, without elaborating.
It is not clear what caused the blasts, or if there were any casualties. There has been no official statement from the military government.
The gunfire and blasts began shortly after midnight, according to residents of a neighbourhood near the Diori Hamani International Airport, the AFP news agency reports. They said calm returned after two hours.
The airport houses an air force base and is located about 10km (six miles) from the presidential palace.
Niger is led by Abdourahamane Tiani who seized power in a 2023 coup that ousted the country’s elected civilian president.
Like its neighbours Burkina Faso and Mali, the country has been fighting jihadist groups who have carried out deadly attacks across the region.
It is also a major producer of uranium.
A huge uranium shipment destined for export has been stuck at the airport amid unresolved legal and diplomatic complications with France after the military government nationalised the country’s uranium mines.
“The situation is under control. There is no need to worry,” the Anadolu news agency quoted a Foreign Affairs ministry official as saying, without elaborating.
The official told the agency they were trying to determine whether the gunfire was linked to the uranium shipment.
[BBC]
A South Korean court has sentenced former First Lady Kim Keon Hee to one year and eight months in prison after finding her guilty of accepting bribes from the Unification Church, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency.
The Seoul Central District Court on Wednesday cleared Kim, the wife of disgraced ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol, of additional charges of stock price manipulation and violating the political funds act.
Kim was accused of receiving bribes and lavish gifts from businesses and politicians, as well as the Unification Church, totaling at least $200,000.
The prosecution team had also indicted Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja, now on trial, after the religious group was suspected of giving Kim valuables, including two Chanel handbags and a diamond necklace, as part of its efforts to win influence with the president’s wife.
Prosecutors in December said Kim had “stood above the law” and colluded with the religious sect to undermine “the constitutionally mandated separation of religion and state”.
Prosecutor Min Joong-ki also said South Korea’s institutions were “severely undermined by abuses of power” committed by Kim.
The former first lady had denied all the charges, claiming the allegations against her were “deeply unjust” in her final testimony last month.
But she has also apologised for “causing trouble despite being a person of no importance”.
[Aljazeera]
A plane crash has killed the deputy chief minister of India’s Maharashtra state, Ajit Pawar, the country’s aviation regulator has said.
The plane, which took off from the state capital, Mumbai, on Wednesday, crash-landed at the airport in Pawar’s constituency of Baramati, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Two members of the prominent politician’s staff and two crew members were also reported to have been killed.
The cause of the crash has not yet been officially confirmed.
Flightradar24, an online flight tracking service, said the aircraft was attempting a second approach to Baramati airport when it crashed.
The Times of India newspaper quoted DGCA officials as saying the aircraft, a Learjet 45 operated by a company called VSR, crashed at about 8:45am local time (03:15 GMT).
The daily said Pawar, the nephew of veteran politician Sharad Pawar, who founded the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), was on his way to attend a public rally for the district council elections.
A witness quoted by the newspaper said the aircraft exploded moments after hitting the ground.
“When we rushed to the spot, the aircraft was on fire. There were four to five more explosions. People tried to pull the passengers out, but the fire was too intense,” said the witness.
Pawar, 66, built his political base through the grassroots cooperative movement. He was a key figure in state politics and served as the second-highest elected official in Maharashtra, as part of the larger federal governing coalition led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He wielded considerable influence in the state’s vibrant sugar belt and was known for his ability to mobilise rural voters.
[Aljazeera]
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