THE sensation of Vladimir Putin’s presidential re-inauguration was his car. A vast Russian-made black limousine with a defensive-looking narrow front window, it made a change from his usual stretch Mercedes. On May 7th it safely carried Mr Putin a few yards from his office, without venturing outside the walls of the Kremlin, to a gilded hall where tsars were once crowned. There, he swore to respect Russia’s constitution, which says that this is his last presidential term. The vehicle, “cooler” than Donald Trump’s “Beast”, as one of his 5,000 guests cooed, was supposed to illustrate the main message of Mr Putin’s speech: thanks to his leadership, Russia is becoming a modern, self-reliant superpower. (Look! In our own fancy cars, we can overtake the world!)

Now that “security and defence capabilities are reliably assured,” Mr Putin said, the country was destined for a “breakthrough” and would be able to achieve “heights…unattainable to others”. Omitting any mention of the West, Mr Putin concentrated on domestic affairs: “I strongly believe that only a free society…is capable of achieving these breakthroughs,” he said. His words mocked thousands of young people who had demonstrated two days earlier under the slogan “He is not a tsar to us”.

In Moscow, the demonstrators had been met not just by riot police but by whip-wielding Cossacks and members of NOD, a militant nationalist movement clad in St George ribbons adopted as a symbol of the Soviet victory in the second world war. Within minutes, riot police had (yet again) detained Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who organised the protest, while the Cossacks and the police hit unarmed protesters. Some 1,600 people were detained across the country. Many remain in police detention; some were beaten up.

Patriotic ruffians

The use of paramilitary thugs marked an escalation of violence. It was probably also political theatre. By having people dressed as Cossacks, as well as the police, beat up the protesters, the aim was to show that real Russians are furious with Mr Navalny’s supporters. If the Russian people were to unite, as Armenians just have to oust their own leader, Mr Putin would be worried. Happily for him, Russians are far from united. As scattered protesters in Moscow moved past Prada and Louis Vuitton boutiques chanting “Russia will be free!”, patrons on the terrace at Tekhnikum, a swanky bistro, clinked glasses of white wine and chuckled, raising a toast of their own: “Russia is already free.”

An odd mix of violent traditionalism and European-style urban modernisation—both financed by the government—is a key element in Mr Putin’s political edifice. It allows him to appeal both to the middle class in large cities and to the conservative and ill-paid population of small-town and rural Russia. He won 77% of the vote, the highest ever scored by a post-Soviet president. His thumping victory supports his image as the supreme national leader and the only person who can keep Russia together.

In fact, his only serious opponent, Mr Navalny, was barred from taking part in the election in March, on spurious grounds. The opposition were constantly harassed. Public employees and staff at state-dependent firms were more or less coerced to turn out to vote. Pro-Putin forces bombarded voters with messages urging them to come to the polls, especially in big cities where turnout has often been low. Kirill Rogov, a political analyst, says the result signals a shift to a harder authoritarianism in which the power of the ruler is maintained mainly by violence rather than money and propaganda.

Mr Putin’s previous presidential term was built around confrontation with the West: the war against Ukraine in 2014, the intervention to prop up Syria’s despot and the meddling in democratic elections in Western countries. These actions were carried out by Mr Putin on the assumption that the West was too distracted, divided or indifferent to push back. But his aggressive tactics have backfired.

In America they have produced a massive backlash against Mr Putin, and personal sanctions against his cronies and tycoons, regardless of their formal affiliation with the state. The use of a military-grade nerve agent to poison a renegade spook produced a similar result in Britain, pushing the government to close the country’s financial system to questionable Russian money. Further escalation with the West now seems both risky and unlikely to help Mr Putin much. According to polls, the most popular complaint among the Russian public about the Kremlin is that it pays too much attention to foreign policy, and thus neglects domestic problems.

As a result, Mr Putin’s main message—both in his pre-election state-of-the-nation address and in his inauguration speech—was a promise to concentrate on technological modernisation, while maintaining tight control over politics. Not wanting to look like an ageing dictator, Mr Putin, who is 65, posed with young activists. On camera, they thanked him for all the opportunities he is offering them. In the first decree of his new term, Mr Putin ordered his government to improve health care and education and to raise living standards. That may be tricky, given the handicaps of economic stagnation, sanctions and endemic corruption, though rising oil prices will now help.

His decree copies the goals outlined in a reform programme drafted by Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister and a licensed liberal in Mr Putin’s entourage. However, it does not mention the means Mr Kudrin thinks his plans would require, such as political competition and an overhaul of the judicial system to foster the rule of law. Mr Putin gave no indication that his new administration will be much different from the old one on any of these counts. On the contrary, he reappointed his pliable sidekick, Dmitry Medvedev, as prime minister. This left the Russian elite none the wiser as to whom he might be grooming as his successor if he really plans to step aside when his term ends in 2024.

Muddling through until then will be increasingly difficult. Economic rents have shrunk, thanks to stagnation, and rich Russians find it harder to shelter their assets and children in the West. As a result infighting within the elite is likely to intensify; regional powerbrokers feel increasingly alienated and vulnerable. Growing political instability seems likely. Even in his shiny new bulletproof car, Mr Putin faces a bumpy ride.