Russian President Vladimir Putin has been sworn in for a new six-year term at a Kremlin ceremony that was boycotted by the US and other Western nations.
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Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, begins his new mandate more than two years after he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, where Russian forces have regained the initiative after a series of reversals and are seeking to advance further in the east.
Putin, 71, told Russia's political elite after being sworn in on Tuesday that he was not shutting down dialogue with the West but that it would have to make its own choice about how to engage with his country.
He said talks on strategic nuclear stability with the West were also possible, but only on equal terms.
"We are a united and great people and together we will overcome all obstacles, we will bring to life everything we have planned. Together we will be victorious," Putin said.
Russia's government was dissolved in accordance with the constitution after Putin was inaugurated for a fifth term.
The government's dissolution was announced in an order signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Formation of a new government will start with Putin putting forward the name of the next prime minister for approval by the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
Putin in March won a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election from which two anti-war candidates were barred on technical grounds.
His best-known opponent, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony a month earlier, and other leading critics are in jail or have been forced to flee abroad.
The US, which said it did not consider his re-election free and fair, stayed away from Tuesday's inauguration 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 close 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," Chemezov said.
"President Putin was re-elected and will continue the path, although the West probably doesn't like it. But they will understand that Putin is stability for Russia rather than some sort of new person who came with new policies - either co-operation or confrontation even."
Australian Associated Press
