The president of Russia Vladimir Putin was sworn in today for a new six-year term as his country’s president in a ceremony boycotted by the US and many European Union countries because of the war in Ukraine.

“I swear (…) to respect and protect the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, to respect and protect the Constitution, national sovereignty, independence, security and integrity of the government,” Putin said, according to with an AFP correspondent from the scene.

Watch video of the swearing-in ceremony:

Putin won a landslide victory in March’s presidential election, more than two years after sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

Some Western governments have said his re-election was problematic because voters were not given a real alternative, a charge rejected by Moscow, which counters that Putin enjoys strong support from the Russian people.

Putin: Sacred duty to rule Russia – We will win together

Ruling Russia, a country of 140 million people, is “a sacred duty”, President Vladimir Putin said today during his inauguration ceremony after being sworn in for a fifth term as his country’s leader for nearly 25 years, in the absence of any tolerable opposition.

“It is a great honor, a responsibility and a sacred duty,” Putin said, from Andreyevsky hallin the Kremlin, Moscow.

Putin promised Russians today during his inauguration speech that they would win “together” and emerge “stronger” from a “difficult period” amid the armed conflict with Ukraine.

“We are a united and great people and together we will overcome every obstacle (…). Together we will win”, he emphasized in front of 2,500 people.

In addition, he said that Russia does not rule out dialogue with the West, but it must be done on equal terms.

In his short speech, the Russian president said his country is open to developing relations with other countries, which he described as the “world majority”.

The state system of Russia must be resistant to any threat and challenge, he added.

Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a new six-year term today in a Kremlin ceremony that was boycotted by the US and other Western countries over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, begins his new term more than two years after sending thousands of troops to Ukraine, where Russian forces are now gaining ground after a series of coups and seeking to proceed further east.

At the age of 71, the Russian president dominates the domestic political landscape. On the international stage, he has engaged in a confrontation with Western countries, which he accuses of using Ukraine as a vehicle to try to defeat and dismantle Russia.

“For Russia, this is the continuation of our course, this is stability, you can ask any citizen on the street,” Sergei Chemezov, a close Putin ally, told Reuters before the inauguration.

Vladimir Putin in March won a landslide victory in a closely-contested election contest that excluded two anti-war candidates on technicalities.

His best-known critic, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony a month earlier, and other leading opposition figures are in prison or have been forced to flee the country.

The US and other Western countries distanced themselves from today’s swearing-in ceremony.

“No, we will not be sending a representative to this inauguration,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said yesterday.

Britain, Canada and most European Union countries also decided to boycott the swearing-in ceremony, but France said it would send its ambassador.

Ukraine said the event sought to create “the illusion of legitimacy for the near-lifelong stay in power of a man who turned the Russian Federation into an aggressor state and the ruling regime into a dictatorship.”