Putin times his inauguration with Moscow's annual Victory Day parade marking the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany - as despot extends his rule by another six years after 'sham' election

Tanks and columns of troops are massing in Moscow ahead of Russia's annual Victory Day - timed this year to coincide with Vladimir Putin's latest presidential inauguration after another election victory denounced as a 'sham'.

The despot is set for another six years in the Kremlin after emphatically and unsurprisingly winning March's presidential poll, with his new term formally beginning on Tuesday.

Two days later there will be the traditional display of military might in the Russian capital's Red Square in Victory Day processions marking the country's contribution to defeating Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

The latest showcase - which has seen large-scale rehearsals at the heart of Moscow today - comes amid reports Russia is losing 1,000 troops per day in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine which was launched back in February 2022.

Mr Putin was today seen attending a mass alongside Orthodox Christians celebrating Easter - while Russian rocket and drone attacks killed two and wounded at least six people in Ukraine overnight.

Tuesday's inauguration ceremony will involve Mr Putin putting a hand on the constitution as he officially begins his latest term - continuing a spell in power which began on New Year's Eve in 1999 when he became acting president.

He has since been successful in crushing political opposition, running independent-minded journalists out of the country and dispensing with once-favoured rich allies.

Analysts say he remains committed to his war in Ukraine despite early Russian hopes of swiftly toppling Volodymyr Zelensky's regime having been frustrated.

More than 450,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since Mr Putin launched the invasion, Britain's armed forces minister Leo Docherty suggested last week in Parliament.

He also claimed 'tens of thousand more have already deserted since the start of the conflict' and 'over 10,000 Russian armoured vehicles' had been destroyed.

Russia has not released any casualty figures since September 2022 but Ukraine's armed forces said Russia suffered 1,120 casualties in 24 hours last Wednesday.

That made it the fifth day running with numbers of wounded or dead topping 1,000.

But the Russian government is trying the steer the nation's focus to this week's double celebrations, with Mr Putin's inauguration on Tuesday two days ahead of the events marking Victory Day.

Thursday's showcase is seen by many as the country's most important secular holiday, commemorating the Soviet Red Army's capture of German capital Berlin announced on May 9, 1945.

Mr Putin has often attempted to compare the country's Second World War efforts, in which 20million of its people were killed, with his Ukraine mission. 

Servicemen and women have been seen carrying out rehearsals ahead of the heavily-choreographed displays due to take place this Thursday.

Military equipment going on show included Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, S-300 missile systems and S-400 air defence system units and Second World War tanks.

Also seen were a Russian BTR-82-A armoured personnel carrier and Tigr-M all-terrain infantry mobility vehicles, while jets flew overhead and soldiers marched with flags.

Last year's Victory Day parade featured just a single tank, a Second World War-era T-34. 

Mr Putin used his speech that day , watched by scores of uniformed soldiers, military officials and leaders of former Soviet nations, to claim Russia wanted peace.

He also accused Western nations of waging a 'real war' against his invading troops, just hours after another barrage of cruise missiles hit several sites across Ukraine. 

The Russian president's determination to conquer Ukraine will override domestic issues in his new term in office, according to Brian Taylor, a Syracuse University professor and author of The Code of Putinism. 

He told the Associated Press: 'The war in Ukraine is central to his current political project and I don't see anything to suggest that that will change, and that affects everything else.

'It affects who's in what positions, it affects what resources are available and it affects the economy, affects the level of repression internally.'

He described Mr Putin as thinking of himself 'in the grand historical terms of Russian lands, bringing Ukraine back to where it belongs, those sorts of ideas'.

Prof Taylor added: 'I think those trump any kind of more socioeconomic-type programs.'

In his state of the nation address in February, Putin vowed to fulfill Moscow's goals in Ukraine, and do whatever it takes to 'defend our sovereignty and security of our citizens'.

He claimed the Russian military had 'gained a huge combat experience' and was 'firmly holding the initiative and waging offensives in a number of sectors'.

The following month he clinched a fifth presidential term with the official result showing he had 88.84 per cent of the vote, amid widespread reports of ballot-stuffing and coercion.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the polls were 'not what free and fair elections look like' while Ukraine's President Zelensky accused Mr Putin of 'simulating' an election.

The most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, had died in prison a month before the election - having previously been barred from standing, as in 2018.

But there could be pitfalls ahead for Mr Putin, according to experts.

Maksim Samorukov, of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, highlighted the 71-year-old president's age, saying: 'Driven by Putin's whims and delusions, Moscow is likely to commit self-defeating blunders.'

Mr Samorukov wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine: 'At 71, his awareness of his own mortality surely impinges on his decision-making.

'A growing sense of his limited time undoubtedly contributed to his fateful decision to invade Ukraine.

'Now more than ever, the Kremlin makes decisions in a personalised and arbitrary way that lacks even basic controls.'

He described the regime as being 'at permanent risk of crumbling overnight, as its Soviet predecessor did three decades ago' - with Russia's political elite becoming 'more obsequious' to what the analyst called Mr Putin's 'paranoid worldview'.

Doubts over Mr Putin's health were fuelled on Victory Day two years ago when he appeared to walk with a limp and sat with a blanket over his lap.