President Putin Fourth Term: Challenges Putin faces on international arena in his fourth term

World
Europe

01:45

Putin's fourth term comes as Russia's relations with the West are at a low ebb, over issues such as Iran, Syria and Ukraine, and the ex-spy poisoning scandal in the UK. CGTN's Wang Yuan takes a closer look at the issues Putin faces on the global stage.

President Putin is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow on Wednesday, amid the Jewish state's escalating tensions with Iran over the 2015 nuclear deal.

Their talks will come just days before Donald Trump decides whether to pull the United States out of the Russia-backed accord.

But this is only one bone of contention between the two countries.

Trump's military strikes against the Syrian regime have angered Putin, who has been supporting the country's president, Bashar al-Assad during the eight-year conflict.

Besides Syria, Russia and the US could also face potential flashpoints in the north Atlantic. The US navy announced last Friday it would revive its Second Fleet, a command structure that was disbanded in 2011, to counter what it calls the threat from Russia's increase of naval patrols in the North Atlantic and Arctic Circle.

Analysts say Putin's decision to take the Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 sparked one of the biggest international crises since the Cold War. Moscow incurred Western sanctions for the controversial action, which remain till this day.

Meanwhile, Moscow has also been accused of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election, and of poisoning a former Russian spy in the UK earlier this year, allegations fervently denied by the Kremlin.

Putin has struggled to revive an economy that crashed after the Western sanctions and the fall in oil prices in 2016.

And many political analysts feel Russia's strained relationship with the West won't get any better under Putin 4.0. Wang Yuan, CGTN.