As Vladimir Putin begins a fourth presidential term, he still has much to do to secure his legacy

With his inauguration for the fourth time as president, Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia for 18 years. It will be nigh on a quarter of a century by the time this term ends: a tenure longer than Vladimir Lenin’s rule of seven years, albeit considerably shorter than Josef Stalin’s 31, Ivan the Terrible’s 51 or Peter the Great’s 43.

Putin has inevitably been compared to the leaders of the Soviet Union and tsars of imperial Russia as an absolute ruler. And indeed, his dominance of his country’s politics, as well as the influence wielded over its economy, appears currently to face no strong opposition.

The Russian president’s power and reach has, according to some polls, led people in parts of Europe (including in France, Germany and Italy) to view him as the most powerful man in the world. In Britain and the US Donald Trump now holds that position. The unfolding course of international relations will depend on the actions of these two men.

In his inaugural speech, 65-year-old Putin declared that “as head of state I will do all I can to multiply the strength and prosperity of Russia. We need to break through in all aspects of life; I am deeply convinced that such a leap forward can only be secured with a free society that accepts all that is new and advanced.” He stressed that in the past Russia had risen again from setbacks “like a phoenix”.

The words may be standard for such an occasion, but they do reflect some of the key aspects of Putin’s reign.

His arrival on his country’s political scene in the late 1990s was timely: he was seen as the strong leader ordinary people wanted at a time when the economy was in a state of flux, basic state functions were unravelling, and the bloody violence of separatist wars in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus had reached ferocious levels. There was also the bitter feeling that Russia had been deliberately humiliated by the West since the end of the Soviet Union.

Putin played up his image of toughness – the former KGB officer, man of action, judo black belt, bare-chested rider, deep sea diver. But many of the problems his country was facing were genuinely addressed by him, with oil and gas revenue fuelling prosperity, the economy stabilising and with investment in infrastructure.

However, at the same time, the “free society” that Putin now hails came under oppressive state pressure. The independent media was curtailed and opposition figures were jailed or driven to exile. On the eve of his most recent inauguration riot police were used against protestors in Moscow and other cities, with more 1,600 arrested. The best known opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, was briefly arrested. He had been barred from standing against Putin in the election because of a conviction for embezzlement, a charge he has denied and which he claims was politically motivated.

Putin was re-elected with 76 per cent of the vote, his strongest ever election performance. There were allegations, as in previous elections, of irregularities (including ballot rigging) but the fact remains that his personal popularity among Russians remains very high.

Nevertheless, alongside the victory there has been a rise in complaints. A recent poll by the independent Levada Centre found that 45 per cent of respondents blamed the President for “failing to ensure an equitable distribution of income in the interests of ordinary people”, up from 39 per cent in the survey three years ago. Another 39 per cent said he had failed to “reimburse the capital lost in the course of reforms to ordinary people”. The percentage who are unhappy with low wages, pensions and other benefits doubled from 15 to 32 per cent in the same period.

As well as waging military campaigns in the Caucasus, Putin has re-asserted Russian power abroad, most recently in Syria, where the swiftness of his decision to support Moscow’s ally, Bashar al-Assad, was in stark contrast to the West’s lack of backing of the rebels who had been enticed to rise up against the Damascus regime.

This decisiveness raised Putin’s stock internationally, and has now made Russia a key player in the Middle East after decades of absence.

Russia has also engaged in two wars in Europe under his presidency: against Georgia, which led to the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia being detached from the country; and then in Ukraine, with the annexation of Crimea and the backing for separatists in the east.

The latter, in particular, led to a serious international crisis, with the European Union and the US imposing sanctions which had a damaging impact on Russia’s economy. There was a possibility of the sanctions being relaxed, but then came the accusations of Kremlin interference in elections in the US, France, Germany, and in the Brexit referendum.

The charge by Britain of Russian culpability in the attempted assassination of former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a nerve agent led to further acrimony and the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the West and its allies in retaliation.

The international crisis has not affected Putin’s ratings at home, however, with the same poll that reflected unhappiness with domestic issues also showing that 47 per cent find his actions in seeking to restore Russia as a great power long overdue and praiseworthy.

But relations between Russia and the West are dire: “worse than at the time of the Cold War”, as both sides say. The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, the man whose election the Kremlin supposedly helped engineer, has hardly led to an outbreak of amity: although both the Russians and some Trump supporters hold that the US president has been forced into taking an abrasive stance by America’s vested interests and the dark forces of the “Deep State”.

Still, the interaction of the Putin presidency with the outside world in these volatile times will depend to a significant extent on the actions of the Trump administration.

Moscow, facing a hostile West, will need to stand by its allies and cultivate new ones.

If Donald Trump carries out his threat to tear up the Iran nuclear deal, Moscow will have to put its backing behind Tehran. Any deal the US president may reach with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un – albeit an unlikely scenario – will lead to recalibration in east Asia; while Trump’s threat of a trade war with China has already led to Beijing and Moscow seeking to further strengthen business and strategic links.

And there is always the possibility that the Republicans lose in the mid-term US elections and a Democrat-controlled Senate and House of Representatives begin impeachment proceedings against Trump, introducing a new set of variables.

Domestically, the Russian economy is making a slow recovery from recession but Western sanctions, especially new American ones against institutions and individuals close to Putin, are creating major problems.

At his inauguration the president spoke of the “colossal sense of responsibility” he felt in office. Would that prove just too tiring at the end? In a television interview two months ago with NBC, Putin maintained he had been thinking about a potential successor since as early as 2000. “There is no harm in thinking about it, but at the end of the day, it will be the Russian people who will decide”, he stated.

Putin will be 72 by the time of the next election in 2024. Without constitutional changes he would not be able to run for a fifth term. A successor may emerge from the infighting between the rival groups of technocrats and the “Silvoki”, the security establishment; but as yet Putin has expressed no preference for any individual in either faction.

Putin could reprise his move in 2008 when he put forward Dmitry Medvedev as president while he retained the real power as prime minister. He could even emulate Xi Jinping in China and abolish presidential term limit, allowing him to remain president for life.

The president insisted in his March interview: “I never changed the constitution, especially for it to benefit me, and I do not have this kind of intention today.”

But it seems unlikely that the man who said in taking up the post for the fourth term that “the object of my life and my work will be to serve the people and the Fatherland” will simply disappear into a quiet life in the foreseeable future.