This Monday, Vladimir Putin culminated his staging of the presidential elections with a macro-concert in Red Square for the tenth anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea, the turning point at which the president showed the world his expansionist ambitions.
The head of the Kremlin, who scored 87.28% of the votes in elections without any real opposition candidate and numerous complaints of irregularities, appeared briefly on stage to get a photo with an audience packed with employees brought from the public administration and the youth movements of Putinism.
The Russian leader only announced in his brief intervention that the train line that crosses from Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia, to Mariupol and Berdiansk, in the southern strip of occupied Ukraine, will be extended to the city of Sevastopol and “ It will serve as an alternative to the Crimean Bridge”, a priority objective of the Ukrainian forces.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin, during his speech at the event in Moscow's Red Square for the tenth anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea.Maxim Shemetov (REUTERS)
“Crimea is not just a strategic territory.
It's not just our history, our pride.
"They are our people," Putin said 10 years after his troops entered the Black Sea peninsula without insignia to take it thanks to the power vacuum caused by the flight of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych after the massacre that followed the Maidan marches in February 2014.
Moscow would try its luck again soon after in eastern Ukraine, but its paramilitaries did not achieve the same success.
The war in Donbas then broke out with the shadow support of the Kremlin.
“The road home to Novorrosiya [the name that the Russian Empire gave to that area after it was taken from the Ottoman Empire less than 300 years ago] has been more difficult, tragic, but we have done it,” Putin declared this Monday despite the fact that Their 2022 invasion failed and Ukrainian forces are still fighting to recover that territory.
The Kremlin only allowed three politicians loyal to Putin to compete in this year's presidential elections: Nikolai Kharitonov, who obtained 4.3% of the votes as a candidate for the Russian Communist Party 20 years after failing in the 2004 elections;
Leonid Slutski, who with 3.1% support is the new charismatic leader of the populist Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia;
and Vladislav Davankov, head of New People, another satellite party of power, which achieved 3.7% of the vote.
Putin brought the three losing candidates on stage to try to show that he competed with other rivals.
“Although they have different points of view, we are one people,” said the Russian president.
The public did not even follow the second most voted candidate when he began chanting “Russia, Crimea, one nation!”
Several dancers perform during the concert to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the annexation of Crimea to Russia in Moscow's Red Square.Associated Press/LaPresse (Associated Press/LaPresse)
The Russian president was visibly uncomfortable on stage.
Unlike his companions, when the Russian anthem was played he sang in a low voice and sometimes out of sync with the lyrics.
The Kremlin tightened security measures around the macro-concert.
Red Square was divided into two sections, with a first area for a trusted public and another, separated from the stage by dozens of meters and several police cordons, in which administration employees, students and members of organizations related to Putin who received tickets to fill the square.
The spectacle was a festival of Kremlin slogans.
The presenter, Yulia Baranovskaya, encouraged the audience to listen to Putin's advice and "follow the tradition of large families" to solve Russia's demographic problem - an issue that has worsened in the last two years due to the bloodshed of war and the march of thousands of the country's young people.
Atmosphere during the event in Moscow's Red Square for the tenth anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea, this Monday.Associated Press/LaPresse (Associated Press/LaPresse)
Several musicians in the service of the Kremlin jumped onto the stage.
One of the most famous, Grígori Leps, sang songs in honor of the annexation of Crimea such as
Motherland
and
The Best Day.
The artist was one of the few without military insignia at the show.
Several groups wore military uniforms and symbols of the invasion of Ukraine, such as the Z with which the vehicles on the front are identified.
Another older band, Liubé, performed the song
Combate,
whose chorus repeats over and over again “the planes fly, the tanks burn.”
Fire, battery!
Fire, battery!”
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