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 music about wartime sacrifice.
After which he took the stage, underneath a banner celebrating the tenth anniversary of Crimea’s seizure from Ukraine, to remind 1000’s of Russians gathered on Purple Sq. that his struggle 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 conflict towards Ukraine would proceed to dominate his rule and known as for unity in bringing the folks of japanese Ukraine “again to their dwelling household.”
“We are going to transfer on collectively, hand in hand,” Mr. Putin informed the group, boasting of a restored railroad line that he mentioned would quickly hook up 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 night time, the state information swiftly declared that he had received greater than 87 p.c of the vote.
Underscoring the synthetic nature of the election, Mr. Putin introduced the three puppet opponents the Kremlin had picked to run towards him onto the stage on Purple Sq. and provided 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 known 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 important Russia!”
The final candidate, from the New Individuals occasion, mentioned he would always remember the satisfaction he had in Mr. Putin when he annexed Crimea in 2014.
“Completely satisfied vacation!” Mr. Putin shouted. “Lengthy stay Russia!”
The group broke into the Russian nationwide anthem earlier than males in navy uniforms with pro-war “Z” patches and medals took the stage and joined a singer in a conflict ballad. “Give him the energy to win,” went the refrain.
Mr. Putin, 71, confirmed little of the emotion he at occasions has displayed at comparable occasions up to now, equivalent to 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 shortly left the occasion.
The celebration made clear that the conflict towards Ukraine had come to be the organizing precept of Mr. Putin’s rule, and it was held as Russians braced for what may come subsequent in a rustic nonetheless preventing on the battlefield and led by a newly emboldened chief.
The huge crowd that gathered on Purple Sq. was made up in a part of authorities staff, college students and others who got tickets and in some circumstances requested to attend, a typical observe for pro-Kremlin rallies in Russia.
A 59-year-old social employee, who gave her identify as Nadya and arrived waving an enormous Russian flag and sporting a folks headdress often called a kokoshnik, mentioned that she didn’t need conflict 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 a lot of Russians, the massive fear now could be of one other navy draft, as Mr. Putin doubles down on his invasion.
A 29-year-old authorities analyst on the celebration, who gave his identify as Maksim, mentioned that failing to see another candidates as sturdy as Mr. Putin, he had voted for him. However 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 every single day,” he mentioned. “We don’t know what is going to occur even tomorrow.”
There are different jitters as properly, from the expectation of upper taxes to the potential for higher 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 Middle, 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 era of officers — largely males born within the Fifties — who now dominate the higher echelons of his system.
“In occasions of conflict, the ‘younger hawks’ are, doubtlessly, more and more in demand,” she wrote.
Mr. Putin is scheduled to be inaugurated in Might — a second of pomp and circumstance that the Kremlin has long-established right into a televised ritual that demonstrates his grip on the Russian state, and an event on which he’s seemingly to present a speech setting out a imaginative and prescient for the subsequent six years.
However within the hours after the polls closed on Sunday, Mr. Putin was fast to clarify that his prime 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 will enable Ukraine “to take a pause for a 12 months and a half or two years in an effort to rearm.”
Repeating a warning he made final summer season, Mr. Putin mentioned that Russia might search to create a “safety zone” on Ukrainian territory that Russia doesn’t presently management.
He didn’t supply particulars, however analysts consider that such a buffer zone would entail an effort to seize elements of the Kharkiv area of Ukraine — an assault that might require a brand new navy draft.
However analysts additionally cautioned that, given the opacity of Mr. Putin’s authorities, it’s arduous to foretell how a lot will actually change. To the extent that Mr. Putin does substitute a few of his prime officers, his priorities can be their “loyalty first and effectiveness second,” mentioned Grigorii Golosov, a political scientist in St. Petersburg.
The orchestrated outpouring of help for Mr. Putin on Monday on Purple Sq., 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.
Earlier than the invasion of Ukraine, political scientists learning Russia discovered that the notion of Mr. Putin’s reputation helped drive his precise help and maintain him in energy. Many Russians had the sense that everybody round them was supporting the Russian chief.
“Individuals wish to associate with the group,” mentioned Noah Buckley, a political science professor at Trinity Faculty Dublin and co-author of the analysis. “Individuals wish to be on the successful aspect.”
That type of help can collapse shortly if the notion of recognition erodes, Mr. Buckley famous. However, he mentioned, “I definitely don’t predict that round this election or anytime quickly.”