Putin sworn in for fourth term as Russian president

– Strained ties with West –

Russia’s ties with the West have been strained by Putin’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and his military campaign in Syria in support of longtime Russian ally President Bashar al-Assad.

In recent months relations have soured further over accusations of the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain and of election meddling in the United States.

“For Putin any concession is a sign of weakness, so there shouldn’t be any expectation of a change in foreign policy,” said Konstantin Kalachev, the head of the Political Expert Group think tank in Moscow.

Vladimir Putin has been sworn in for a fourth term as Russian president in a lavish ceremony in the Grand Kremlin Palace pic.twitter.com/XMNm5dAhsk

— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 7, 2018

The constitution bars Putin from running again when his fourth term ends in 2024. But he has remained silent on the issue of his succession.

– Economic woes –

Putin has promised to use his fourth term to improve Russians’ standard of living.

“People will live better,” he said.

Hours after the inauguration ceremony, Putin issued a decree setting targets for his next six years in power. These included halving Russia’s poverty rate, increasing pensions and boosting the average life expectancy to 78 by 2024.

A new poll by Russia’s independent Levada Center found that while the majority of Russians support Putin’s foreign policy, the main complaints are over the economy.

The survey showed 45 percent of Russians believe Putin has been unable to achieve a “fair distribution” of state revenues to benefit ordinary people.

Russian businesses are expecting wide-ranging reforms to the government’s heavily bureaucratised system.

According to statistics published in the RBC newspaper on Monday, the number of bureaucrats during Putin’s third term rose by 50 percent, from 1.57 million to 2.17 million.

Putin has struggled to revive an economy that was hit hard by the Western sanctions over Crimea and a fall in global oil prices.