MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin will on Monday be inaugurated for his fourth Kremlin term under the shadow of hugely strained ties with the West and a crackdown on the opposition.
Putin, who has ruled Russia for 18 years, will begin his next stint as leader two days after nearly 1,600 protesters including opposition leader Alexei Navalny were detained during nationwide rallies against him, with the European Union condemning “police brutality and mass arrests”.
The Russian president used his last term to annex Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and launch a military campaign in Syria on the side of Bashar al-Assad the following year …read more
Source: The Manila Times
