MOSCOW — Vladimir V. Putin took the presidential oath of office for the third time Monday, swearing to uphold the Russian Constitution as his hand rested on a red-bound copy. Outside, the streets were mostly empty, except for knots of would-be demonstrators who were hustled off to police vans.
Inside the Grand Kremlin Palace, nearly 3,000 dignitaries listened as Putin said he intended to strengthen democracy and make political dialogue more inclusive. Outside, about 120 were arrested, accused by police of attempting to demonstrate without permission more than half a mile from the Kremlin ceremony.
That tension between official promises of democracy and restrictions on protest may come to define what is now a six-year presidential term for Putin. The Russians who began demonstrating in December in favor of honest elections fear that a weakened Putin will crack down rather than liberalize. Their misgivings were only reinforced Sunday, when a harsh police presence confronted a 20,000-strong legal, anti-Putin march. About 450 were arrested.
Monday’s ceremony began just before noon, when outgoing president Dmitry Medvedev’s heavily guarded motorcade arrived at the Kremlin. Putin arrived shortly afterward, borne by limousine from the Russian White House on broad deserted boulevards, along the Moscow River, past the crazy-quilt cupolas of St. Basil’s Cathedral onto Red Square and through the Kremlin’s Spassky Gate, opened for the occasion.
Greeted by bayonet-carrying guards who slowly turned their hands to watch as he passed, Putin walked on a long red carpet through the grand, gilded halls: first St. George Hall, then St. Alexander and finally St. Andrew, the throne room of the czars. Above the palace, the presidential flag fluttered in the breeze, the white, blue and red of the Russian Federation emblazoned with the czarist double-headed eagle.
Medvedev, looking wan, even diminished, spoke first. “We launched the modernization of our economy,” he said, “although not everything worked out entirely as planned.”
Medvedev, who became president in 2008 as the hand-picked successor after Putin reached his two-term limit, had been seen as offering the promise of liberalization. But he disappointed his supporters when he agreed in September to switch places with Putin, declining to run for president against his mentor. He is expected to be named prime minister Tuesday.
Putin looked impassive, occasionally even glum. “We have passed a long and difficult road together,” he said. “We now feel confident. We restored our dignity as a great nation.”
As the short ceremony concluded with stirring music, the skies outside were growing heavier and heavier. Putin walked out the way he had come, this time stopping to acknowledge his wife, Lyudmilla, who is rarely seen in public. She was standing with Boris Yeltsin’s widow, Naina, and Medvedev’s wife Svetlana. Putin kissed each woman on the cheek with equal decorum, and then spoke a few words to his wife.
Off camera, he was given the nuclear suitcase. Then, outside in Cathedral Square, Putin and Medvedev reviewed the presidential guard, who loudly saluted “Comrade President.”
On the streets, about a thousand demonstrators tried to gather but were dispersed by police. Some clashed with pro-Putin youth groups, and the police arrested some of each. Activists reported that police were arresting people simply for wearing the white ribbon associated with anti-Putin demonstrators.
Boris Nemtsov, a long-time democrat who was detained Sunday and then released, told a radio station that police stormed into the Jean Jacques restaurant frequented by the opposition, overturning tables and rounding up activists, who were sitting at tables talking.
A sign soon went up on the restaurant door: “Closed for technical reasons.”
At the Grand Kremlin Palace, the inauguration was followed by a lavish banquet with champagne and caviar for the guests, who included a few foreign dignitaries, Putin’s friend Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, among them. Also on hand were Mikhail Prokhorov, a billionaire and unsuccessful presidential candidate; Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union; and other Russian officials and cultural figures.
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