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His most beloved crooner sang a nationalistic ballad with an attraction to Russians: “The Motherland is asking. Don’t let her down.”
His favourite band belted out a moody track about wartime sacrifice.
And then he took the stage, below a banner celebrating the tenth anniversary of Crimea’s seizure from Ukraine, to remind hundreds of Russians gathered on Red Square that his combat so as to add territory to Russia wasn’t over.
President Vladimir V. Putin, a day after declaring victory in a performative election, signaled on Monday that the struggle in opposition to Ukraine would proceed to dominate his rule and referred to as for unity in bringing the individuals of japanese Ukraine “again to their dwelling household.”
“We will transfer on collectively, hand in hand,” Mr. Putin instructed the group, boasting of a restored railroad line that he mentioned would quickly connect with Crimea by way of territory taken from Ukraine. “And that is exactly what actually makes us stronger — not phrases, however deeds.”
The show of nationalistic fervor got here because the capstone of a three-day election whose foregone conclusion prompted comparisons of Mr. Putin’s Russia to different authoritarian dictatorships. On Sunday evening, the state information swiftly declared that he had gained greater than 87 p.c of the vote.
Underscoring the substitute nature of the election, Mr. Putin introduced the three puppet rivals the Kremlin had picked to run in opposition to him onto the stage on Red Square and supplied every a flip on the microphone, saying all of them took “completely different approaches” however had “one Motherland.”
The communist candidate, whom the Russian authorities referred to as the second-place finisher, with simply over 4 p.c of the vote, praised Mr. Putin for bringing Crimea again to “dwelling port.”
The nationalist candidate mentioned Crimea would eternally be a part of Russia on the maps of the world and led a cheer: “To Russia, to our nice future and to the president of an excellent Russia!”
The final candidate, from the New People party, mentioned he would always remember the pleasure he had in Mr. Putin when he annexed Crimea in 2014.
“Happy vacation!” Mr. Putin shouted. “Long stay Russia!”
The crowd broke into the Russian nationwide anthem earlier than males in army uniforms with pro-war “Z” patches and medals took the stage and joined a singer in a struggle ballad. “Give him the power to win,” went the refrain.
Mr. Putin, 71, confirmed little of the emotion he at occasions has displayed at comparable occasions up to now, reminiscent of when he appeared to tear up throughout a victory speech after the 2012 election. He mouthed the phrases to the nationwide anthem with comparatively little enthusiasm and rapidly left the occasion.
The celebration made clear that the struggle in opposition to Ukraine had come to be the organizing precept of Mr. Putin’s rule, and it was held as Russians braced for what would possibly come subsequent in a rustic nonetheless preventing on the battlefield and led by a newly emboldened chief.
The huge crowd that gathered on Red Square was made up in a part of authorities employees, college students and others who got tickets and in some circumstances requested to attend, a standard observe for pro-Kremlin rallies in Russia.
A 59-year-old social employee, who gave her title as Nadya and arrived waving an enormous Russian flag and sporting a folks headdress generally known as a kokoshnik, mentioned that she didn’t need struggle however that the West wanted to cease antagonizing Russia. Russia, she mentioned, must be revered, and ending the hostilities is lower than Mr. Putin.
“It doesn’t depend upon us,” she mentioned. “It’s the West. England, America — they wish to divide us up and make us into little colonies.”
For many Russians, the large fear now could be of one other army draft, as Mr. Putin doubles down on his invasion.
A 29-year-old authorities analyst on the celebration, who gave his title as Maksim, mentioned that failing to see some other candidates as robust as Mr. Putin, he had voted for him. But he expressed sympathy for the individuals who stay in Ukraine, in addition to for Russian troopers preventing on the entrance, and acknowledged that he feared one other draft.
“I fear about it, I fear about it day-after-day,” he mentioned. “We don’t know what’s going to occur even tomorrow.”
There are different jitters as nicely, from the expectation of upper taxes to the potential for larger repression. Mr. Putin, newly elected to his fifth time period, might reshuffle his cupboard, a typical post-election process that some analysts consider he might use this time round to raise essentially the most hawkish members of the ruling elite.
Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, predicted that Mr. Putin would search to resume the personnel in his “energy vertical,” the frequent time period for the political system he has honed that has turned post-Soviet Russia into an autocracy. She mentioned he might search to advertise younger, loyal, pro-war bureaucrats over the older technology of officers — principally males born within the Fifties — who now dominate the higher echelons of his system.
“In occasions of struggle, the ‘younger hawks’ are, doubtlessly, more and more in demand,” she wrote.
Mr. Putin is scheduled to be inaugurated in May — a second of pomp and circumstance that the Kremlin has original right into a televised ritual that demonstrates his grip on the Russian state, and an event on which he’s probably to offer a speech setting out a imaginative and prescient for the following six years.
But within the hours after the polls closed on Sunday, Mr. Putin was fast to clarify that his high precedence was to proceed waging his invasion of Ukraine, till Kyiv and the West conform to a peace deal on his phrases.
He mentioned at an after-midnight information convention that Russia wished talks to construct “peaceable, neighborly relations in the long run,” not a deal that may permit Ukraine “to take a pause for a 12 months and a half or two years with the intention to rearm.”
Repeating a warning he made final summer time, Mr. Putin mentioned that Russia might search to create a “safety zone” on Ukrainian territory that Russia doesn’t presently management.
He didn’t provide particulars, however analysts consider that such a buffer zone would entail an effort to seize components of the Kharkiv area of Ukraine — an assault that might require a brand new army draft.
But analysts additionally cautioned that, given the opacity of Mr. Putin’s authorities, it’s exhausting to foretell how a lot will actually change. To the extent that Mr. Putin does exchange a few of his high officers, his priorities shall be their “loyalty first and effectiveness second,” mentioned Grigorii Golosov, a political scientist in St. Petersburg.
The orchestrated outpouring of assist for Mr. Putin on Monday on Red Square, which was beamed over state tv throughout the nation, was designed to speak that supporting the Russian chief was the patriotic, commonplace factor to do.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, political scientists learning Russia discovered that the notion of Mr. Putin’s reputation helped drive his precise assist and maintain him in energy. Many Russians had the sense that everybody round them was supporting the Russian chief.
“People prefer to go together with the group,” mentioned Noah Buckley, a political science professor at Trinity College Dublin and co-author of the analysis. “People prefer to be on the profitable facet.”
That kind of assist can collapse rapidly if the notion of recognition erodes, Mr. Buckley famous. But, he mentioned, “I actually don’t predict that round this election or anytime quickly.”
