Keir Simmons is chief international correspondent for NBC News, based in London.
MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin took to the Red Square stage Monday for an election celebration that seemed to carry a grander message for the flag-waving crowd of thousands, and for the world: Having extended his rule over Russia, his focus would be tightening his grip on Ukrainian territory. “Together, hand in hand — we will move on,” he proclaimed after singing along to the national anthem, just hours after claiming a landslide win in a stage-managed election with no opposition.
And this was an especially pro-Putin crowd, not filled with those who turned out at noon Sunday in a silent show of defiance called for by the opposition, or quietly resigned to life under Putin. ‘Crimea is not Russian’ Putin used the occasion to promise to extend the Russian railroad system all the way to occupied Crimea, as an alternative to the bridge connecting the peninsula to the Russian mainland that has come under frequent Ukrainian attacks.
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