(Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was up the West to choose between confrontation and cooperation as he was sworn in for a new six-year term on Tuesday at a Kremlin ceremony that was boycotted by the United States and many of its allies, Reuters reported.

More than two years into the war in Ukraine, Putin said he wanted to “bow” before Russia’s soldiers there and declared in his inauguration speech that his landslide re-election in March was proof the country was united and on the right track.

“You, citizens of Russia, have confirmed the correctness of the country’s course. This is of great importance right now, when we are faced with serious challenges,” he told dignitaries in a gilded Kremlin hall where a trumpet fanfare sounded to greet his arrival.

“I see in this a deep understanding of our common historical goals, a determination to adamantly defend our choice, our values, freedom and the national interests of Russia.”

At 71, Putin dominates the domestic political landscape. Leading opposition figures are in prison or exile, and his best known critic, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony in February, read the report.

Yulia Navalnaya, the late dissident’s wife, urged supporters in a video on Tuesday to keep up the struggle against Putin. “With each of his terms, everything only gets worse, and its’ frightening to imagine what else will happen while Putin remains in power,” she said.

On the international stage, Putin is locked in a confrontation with Western countries he accuses of using Ukraine as a vehicle to try to defeat and dismember Russia.

Putin told Russia’s political elite after being sworn in that he was not rejecting dialogue with the West, including on nuclear weapons.

“The choice is theirs: do they intend to continue trying to restrain the development of Russia, continue the policy of aggression, incessant pressure on our country for years, or look for a path to cooperation and peace?” he said.

With Russia’s troops advancing gradually in eastern Ukraine, the top U.S. intelligence official said last week that Putin appeared to see domestic and international developments trending in his favour and the conflict was unlikely to end anytime soon.

It remains unclear how far Putin will seek to press the war and on what terms he might discuss ending it – decisions that will depend in part on whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November. Ukraine says peace can only come with a full withdrawal of Russia’s troops, who control nearly 20% of its territory.

WESTERN ABSENTEES

Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, will surpass Soviet leader Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since 18th century Empress Catherine the Great if he completes a new six-year term. He would then be eligible to seek re-election again, Reuters reported.

He won victory by a record margin in a tightly controlled election from which two anti-war candidates were barred on technical grounds. The opposition called it a sham.

The United States, which said it did not consider his re-election free and fair, stayed away from Tuesday’s ceremony.

Britain, Canada and most EU nations also decided to boycott the swearing-in, but France said it would send its ambassador.

Ukraine said the event sought to create “the illusion of legality for the nearly lifelong stay in power of a person who has turned the Russian Federation into an aggressor state and the ruling regime into a dictatorship”.

Sergei Chemezov, a Putin ally, told Reuters before the ceremony, that Putin brought stability, something which even his critics should welcome.

“For Russia, this is the continuation of our path, this is stability – you can ask any citizen on the street,” he said.

NUCLEAR TENSIONS

Russia’s relations with the United States and its allies are at their lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world came to the brink of nuclear war.

The West has provided Ukraine with artillery, tanks and long-range missiles, but NATO troops have not joined the conflict directly, something that both Putin and Biden have warned could lead to World War Three.

Underscoring the rise in nuclear tensions, Russia said on Monday it would practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise, after what it said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.

One of the decisions awaiting Putin in his new term will be whether to seek to renew or replace the last remaining treaty that limits Russian and U.S. strategic nuclear warheads. The New START agreement is due to expire in 2026.

In line with the constitution, the government resigned at the start of the new presidential term. Putin ordered it to remain in office while he appoints a new one which is expected to include many of the same faces.

Russia said on Monday it would practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what the Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States, Reuters reported.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has repeatedly warned of rising nuclear risks – warnings which the United States says it has to take seriously though U.S. officials say they have seen no change in Russia’s nuclear posture.

Russia says the United States and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of confrontation between nuclear powers by supporting Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars of weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory.

Russia’s defence ministry said it would hold military drills including practice for the preparation and deployment for use of non-strategic nuclear weapons. It said the exercises were ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

“During the exercise, a set of measures will be carried out to practise the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the ministry said.

Missile forces in the Southern Military District, aviation and the navy will take part, the defence ministry said.

The exercise is aimed at ensuring Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty “in response to provocative statements and threats by certain Western officials against the Russian Federation”, it said.

Russia and the United States are by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers, holding more than 10,600 of the world’s 12,100 nuclear warheads. China has the third-largest nuclear arsenal, followed by France and Britain.

Russia has about 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists, opens new tab, though there is uncertainty about exact figures for such weapons due to a lack of transparency, read the report.

No power has used nuclear weapons in war since the United States unleashed the first atomic bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Major nuclear powers routinely check their nuclear weapons but very rarely publicly link such exercises to specific perceived threats in the way that Russia has.

NUCLEAR RISKS

U.S. President Joe Biden said last year that he felt there was no real prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons but CNN reported that top U.S. officials did contingency planning, opens new tab for a potential Russian nuclear strike against Ukraine in 2022.

Some Western and Ukrainian officials have said Russia is bluffing over nuclear weapons to scare the West, though the Kremlin has repeatedly indicated that it would consider breaking the nuclear taboo if Russia’s existence was threatened, Reuters reported.

“We do not see anything new here,” said Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence. “Nuclear blackmail is a constant practice of Putin’s regime.”

The defence ministry, run by long-term Putin ally Sergei Shoigu, did not say which specific Western officials it was referring to in its statement.

The Kremlin said that it was in response to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, British officials and a representative of the U.S. Senate.

Macron has in public raised the idea of sending European troops to fight Russia in Ukraine while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Ukraine had a right to use the weapons provided by London to strike targets inside Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western statements about sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine amounted to “a completely new round of escalation of tension – it is unprecedented, and of course it requires special attention and special measures”.

Putin warned the West in March that a direct conflict between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario, read the report.

WAR GAMES

NATO, created in 1949 to provide collective security against the Soviet Union, is currently holding the “Steadfast Defender” exercise, its largest since the end of the Cold War. NATO has not said whether it would include rehearsal of any nuclear element.

A nuclear command exercise by NATO in 1983 prompted fears at the top levels of the Kremlin that the United States was preparing for a surprise nuclear attack.

Putin has faced calls inside Russia from some hardliners to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which sets out the conditions under which Russia would use a nuclear weapon, though Putin said last year he saw no need for change.

Broadly, the doctrine says such a weapon would be used in response to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state is put under threat”.

Putin casts the war as part of a centuries-old battle with the West which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what Moscow considers to be Russia’s historical sphere of influence.

Ukraine and its Western backers say the war is an imperial-style land grab by a corrupt dictatorship. Western leaders have vowed to work for a defeat of Russian forces in Ukraine, while ruling out any deployment of NATO personnel there.