Political career of Vladimir Putin personally congratulated Putin on his victory, calling Putin "a driving force behind strategic ties of cooperation between Venezuela and Russia." Anti-Putin protests took place during and directly after the presidential campaign. The most notorious protest was the 21 February Pussy Riot performance, and subsequent trial. Also, an estimated 8,000-20,000 protesters gathered in Moscow on 6 May, when eighty people were injured in confrontations with police, and 450 were arrested, with another 120 arrests taking place the following day. Putin was inaugurated in the Kremlin on 7 May 2012. On his first day as President, Putin issued 14 Presidential decrees, including
Crimean speech of Vladimir Putin 1938 and has directly compared Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. Other politicians and journalists have done the same and have compared Crimean speech of Vladimir Putin to Hitler's speech. Barack Obama gave a speech on March 26, 2014 to counter many of the arguments made by Putin. Obama stated that the historical relations between Ukraine and Russia did not give Russia the right to dictate Ukraine’s future. He also denied Putin’s claim that the Russian minority in Ukraine was in danger and argued that the Russians actions against Ukraine were undemocratic and constituted brute force. Russian historian Andrey Piontkovsky