At home, however, many have embraced the leader.
Newspapers have hailed Putin’s 22-year tenure as the country’s leader, with Komsomolskaya Pravda drawing parallels with Peter the Great, Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev.
In Grozny, southern Russia, 20,000 Chechen fighters gathered for a military demonstration in his honor, a move that came two days after Putin. promote Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful leader of the region, rose to the rank of colonel.
Online, videos went viral of young people praising Putin. One showed Kindergarten students in central Russia performing one dance for the president and another, taken from above, shows student Petersburg arranged their bodies to read “Putin Is My President” while waving the Russian flag.
In a letter to Putin, Patriarch Kirill I, head of the Russian Orthodox church, wrote: “God has placed you in a position of power, so that you can perform a service of great importance. special importance and great responsibility” to the country and its people, praising the growing closeness of the relationship between church and state.
Even as the Ukrainian people wished him dead, Mr. Putin – whose public photographs of him topless on horseback or in the river have portrayed him as a symbol of vitality – seemed to have the power. good physical health.
Western intelligence officials, as well as the Kremlin, dismissed speculation that he fell ill in July. William J. Burns, director of the CIA, noted at the time: “There are many rumors about President Putin’s health and as far as we can tell he is perfectly healthy.
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contribution report.
