Change of tone

There were no surprises in the Russian presidential elections, with all pre-election projections having pointed to the imminent victory of President Vladimir Putin by a big margin. According to the final counting, Putin had won 76.69 per cent of the votes, which is very impressive, even though there was no real competition to his candidacy.

The thing that matters now is what comes next and what can the Russian people and the international community expect from Putin. Two policy declarations made by President Putin in the wake of his election suggest a change of direction in Moscow, albeit rhetorical for the time being until the Russians and the international community put these proclamations to task in real terms.

The first promising thing that Putin has committed himself to his people was his pledge to focus on domestic issues, be they related to lifting the standard of living, improving education quality, paying more attention to health issues and, no doubt, fighting poverty and unemployment. Putin corroborated these new policy outlines by declaring that Russia will be spending less on defence and more on domestic goals.

The world would also be interested in holding Putin accountable on his post-election victory promise that Russia would not be seeking an increase in its defence expenditure or engaging in an arms race with the US.

Following his big election victory, Putin said: "We will do everything to resolve all the differences with our partners using political and diplomatic channels.” This sounds great, but Putin has to demonstrate now this change of tone on the ground, starting with the Syrian conflict, where the massive Russian military intervention not only did little to advance the peace process in the country, but also increased the number of deaths and destruction under its indiscriminate aerial bombings that claimed the lives of innocent people, the majority of whom were children and women.

President Putin has now to demonstrate how the change of tone is not only rhetorical but real. To be sure, there are other parts of the world where Putin has to show how this change of heart is not merely cosmetic but real.

Syria should be a test case for Putin's new enlightened policy direction, because Moscow is doing the opposite of what has been expected of it, by not only the suffering Syrian people, but also the entire international community.