RUSSIA: Mr Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a second term as Russia's President yesterday in a lavish Kremlin ceremony that underscored his vow to bring pride and prosperity to the world's biggest country.
A vanguard of black-clad motorcycle outriders swept Mr Putin's armoured limousine into central Moscow, along the embankment of the Moskva river and into the heart of the Kremlin, where an elite guard in dress uniform greeted him under blue skies.
A red carpet led the former KGB spy through two ornate palace chambers, past 1,700 invited politicians and dignitaries, to the glittering Andreyevsky Hall, where he mounted a dais as the black-and-gold clock on the Kremlin's Spassky Tower struck noon.
Chandeliers glittered in the gilded hall as Mr Putin, who won more than 70 per cent of the vote in a landslide re-election in March, placed his right hand on a red leather-bound copy of the constitution and took his oath.
After a choir sang the Russian anthem - the old Soviet score that Mr Putin controversially restored with new words - the 51-year-old pledged to use his second four-year term to create "a strong but peaceful nation that people can be proud of".
Mr Putin obliquely rejected criticism of the grinding war with Chechen rebels and allegations that he has little regard for civil society, preferring to silence dissent by controlling the media and boosting the power of hardline allies in the security services.
He praised Russians for their "patriotism" in tackling "many problems that seemed insoluble" when he took power in 2000, including preserving the country's "territorial integrity".
"Only free people in a free country can be successful: that is the basis for the strong economic growth of the country and its political stability," he continued, adding that the main goal of his second term was to "create a fundamentally better quality of life for our people - achieve a real, palpable improvement in their well-being."
Mr Putin's immense personal power is underpinned by the sway that his allies enjoy in parliament, after their own crushing election victory last December.
The President struck a conciliatory note to opponents yesterday, though it sounded a little odd at a ceremony to which leading liberals had not been invited.
"The success and development of Russia cannot and should not depend on one person or single political party or single political force," he said. "We must have a wide base of support in order to continue reforms in our country."
He called on Russians to develop a "mature civil society" and vowed to re-establish their nation as a major player in global affairs.
"We made our motherland an open country ready for broad, equal co-operation with other states, a country strengthening its position on the world stage and peacefully defending our legitimate interests in a rapidly changing world," Mr Putin said, as an 18-gun salute rang out over the Kremlin walls and the Moskva river.