Vladimir Putin celebrates his fake election win

Vladimir Putin looked smirkingly triumphant as he strode onto a Red Square that had been filled with thousands of flag-waving extras, herded in to demonstrate unity and support. This spectacle, on March 18th, a day after the election that gave him yet another presidential term, was designed to give legitimacy to a dictator whose power rests on violence, lies and corruption; and it cleverly doubled up with the celebration of the annexation of Crimea exactly ten years earlier. “Glory to Russia,” he shouted, clutching a microphone and cueing up the Stalin-era Soviet national anthem, which he brought back to Russia in 2000 after he first became the country’s president.