FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Russian President Putin Inaugurated; Germany’s Schröder Attends Ceremony
May 7, 2018 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin took office for his second consecutive six-year term today, and said that he believes the meaning of life is to do his utmost for the sake of Russia’s present and future, TASS reported. Altogether, this will be his fourth term as President.
“While assuming office as Russia’s President, I am acutely aware of my colossal responsibility to each of you, all our multiethnic people; responsibility to Russia, the country of grandiose victories and accomplishments; to millennia-old history of Russia’s statehood and our ancestors,”
he said at the inaugural ceremony, describing their courage and sacred attitude toward their home country.
“I believe my duty and the meaning of my entire life is doing everything for the sake of Russia; for its peaceful and prosperous present and future; for the sake of preserving and continuing our great people; for the sake of well-being in every Russian family.”
Putin continued, “As the head of state, I will do everything to multiply Russia’s strength, prosperity and glory in order to live up to the demands of the society and the hopes of the country’s citizens.” He said that Russia had gone through tough times in the 1990s and early 2000s, and that
“not all wounds have been healed; not all losses and difficulties have been overcome, while life [holds] new challenges for us; new difficult tasks, and we still have to work hard to address them.”
“There is no time to spare,” Putin said.
“However, we all remember well that over its more than thousand-year-long history Russia was repeatedly confronted with the times of trouble and hardships and it was always born anew, like the phoenix, reaching the heights that were unattainable for others.”
The President concluded, “We need breakthroughs in all the spheres of life. ... I’m deeply convinced that such a breakthrough can be ensured only by a free society that accepts all new and advanced things, and rejects unfairness, stagnation, rigid protectionism, and bureaucratic inertia. All that constrains people and impedes them from opening themselves up and fulfilling their potential and their talents, and therefore holds back the aspiration of our entire country for the future.”
The complete transcript is available on the President’s website.
Live broadcasts of the Kremlin ceremony showed former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder standing in the front row, shoulder to shoulder with the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. He was also the second person to receive a handshake from the newly-inaugurated Russian leader—coming in before Medvedev. Last year, Schröder became the chairman of Russia’s state oil company, Rosneft. He is also one of the most prominent voices in the West calling for an end to sanctions against Moscow.
