Putin: more demagoguery than democracy?

Vladimir Putin wraps himself in a nationalist appeal

When Vladimir Putin was sworn in as President of the Russian Federation the fanfares and applause of the great and powerful reverberated around the gilded pillars of the Kremlin's magnificent Andreyevsky Hall. An inauguration worthy of a tsar.

Popular rise

It had been an astonishing rise to power. Virtually unheard of a few months before, he was now the most popular man in Russia.

Mr Putin recently went online to list his favourite authors - a parade of Russian classics...Chekhov, Tolstoi, Dostoevsky. It was a revealing moment - a true patriot clearly, but one who is comfortable in the world of modern communications.

Poulist appeal and physical prowess

This is a man who has been shaped to appeal to a wide spectrum of Russians.

Soviet past

Army Day and Russia's ubiquitous president addresses the troops on Red Square. The atrmosphere recalls the not so distant Soviet past. He tells the people that Russians are a people who are used to winning - not just wars, but triumphs in peacetime too.

Soldier guards Russian Interior Ministry as tit-for-tat expulsions accelerate

It's a message that plays well with the Russian people. They share his sense of humiliated national pride. Putin's image is everywhere in Russia - gazing at you in oil paints from a thousand canvasses, glittering from mounds of lacquered wooden eggs.

One year after his election, Vladimir Putin remains astonishingly popular.

Snubbing the West

Russians love it when he snubs the United States - as over the sale of arms and nuclear technology to Iran.

Here's a man who won't let Russia be pushed around any more - a foreign policy trait which is believed to be crucial to his popularity.

How long though before the image starts to crack? Mr Putin's tough guy image is under growing strain.

At the start of the second Chechen war, he promised to crush terrorism once and for all. Eighteen months later though the war goes on.

A worrying disregard for democracy in modern Russia?

Russian soldiers are dying every day in a war that has damaged Moscow's image abroad and looks increasingly unwinnable. A critical year lies ahead.

Economic stagnation

One area where Mr Putin has come in for criticism is that of economic reform, where he is said to have been indecisive.

Critics say that he'll no longer be able to put off tough choices in field of economy.

"Mr Putin will have to choose whether he wants to have Russia as a more effective democracy or he will bend to some version of authoritarian rule"

Political analyst, Alexei Pushkov

The spin doctors are still hard at work - but the intrusive reality of Russian life is beginning to catch up.

Reform is stagnating, corruption remains endemic, bureaucracy still stifles the economy, the independent media are struggling for breath and Russia's version of democracy looks increasingly state-managed.

Yet where is the opposition? Vladimir Putin hasn't got a rival in sight.