As Putin begins another 6-year term, he is entering a new era of extraordinary power in Russia

Just a few months short of a quarter-century as Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday will put his hand on a copy of the constitution and begin another six-year term as president wielding extraordinary power.

Since becoming acting president on the last day of 1999, Putin has shaped Russia into a monolith — crushing political opposition, running independent-minded journalists out of the country and promoting an increasing devotion to prudish “traditional values” that pushes many in society into the margins.

His influence is so dominant that other officials could only stand submissively on the sidelines as he launched a war in Ukraine despite expectations the invasion would bring international opprobrium and harsh economic sanctions, as well as cost Russia dearly in the blood of its soldiers.

With that level of power, what Putin will do with his next term is a daunting question at home and abroad.

The war in Ukraine, where Russia is making incremental though consistent battlefield gains, is the top concern, and he is showing no indication of changing course.

“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,” Brian Taylor, a Syracuse University professor and author of “The Code of Putinism,” said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“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 said.

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 has “gained a huge combat experience” and is “firmly holding the initiative and waging offensives in a number of sectors.”

That will come at huge expense, which could drain money available for the extensive domestic projects and reforms in education, welfare and poverty-fighting that Putin used much of the two-hour address to detail.

Taylor suggested such projects were included in the address as much for show as for indicating real intent to put them into action.

Putin “thinks of himself in the grand historical terms of Russian lands, bringing Ukraine back to where it belongs, those sorts of ideas. And I think those trump any kind of more socioeconomic-type programs,” Taylor said.

If the war were to end in less than total defeat for either side, with Russia retaining some of the territory it has already captured, European countries fear that Putin could be encouraged toward further military adventurism in the Baltics or in Poland.

“It's possible that Putin does have vast ambitions and will try to follow a costly success in Ukraine with a new attack somewhere else,” Harvard international relations professor Stephen Walt wrote in the journal Foreign Policy. “But it is also entirely possible that his ambitions do not extend beyond what Russia has won — at enormous cost and that he has no need or desire to gamble for more.”

But, Walt added, “Russia will be in no shape to launch new wars of aggression when the war in Ukraine is finally over.”

Such a rational concern might not prevail, others say. Maksim Samorukov, of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that “driven by Putin's whims and delusions, Moscow is likely to commit self-defeating blunders.”

In a commentary in Foreign Affairs, Samorukov suggested that Putin's age could affect his judgment.

“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.”

Overall, Putin may be heading into his new term with a weaker grip on power than he appears to have.

Russia's “vulnerabilities are hidden in plain sight. Now more than ever, the Kremlin makes decisions in a personalized and arbitrary way that lacks even basic controls,” Samorukov wrote.

“The Russian political elite have grown more pliant in implementing Putin's orders and more obsequious to his paranoid worldview,” he wrote. The regime “is at permanent risk of crumbling overnight, as its Soviet predecessor did three decades ago."

Putin is sure to continue his continue animosity toward the West, which he said in his state of the nation address “would like to do to Russia the same thing they did in many other regions of the world, including Ukraine: to bring discord into our home, to weaken it from within.”

Putin's resistance to the West manifests not only anger at its support for Ukraine, but in what he sees as the undermining of Russia's moral fiber.

Russia last year banned the notional LGBTQ+ “movement” by declaring it to be extremist in what officials said was a fight for traditional values like those espoused by the Russian Orthodox Church in the face of Western influence. Courts also banned gender transitioning.

“I would expect the role of the Russian Orthodox Church to continue to be quite visible," Taylor said. He also noted the burst of social media outrage that followed a party hosted by TV presenter Anastasia Ivleeva where guests were invited to show up “almost naked.”

“Other actors in the system understand that that stuff resonates with Putin. ... There were people interested in exploiting things like that,” he said.

Although the opposition and independent media have almost vanished under Putin's repressive measures, there's still potential for further moves to control Russia's information space, including moving forward with its efforts to establish a “sovereign internet.”

The inauguration comes two days before Victory Day, Russia's most important secular holiday, commemorating the Soviet Red Army's capture of Berlin in World War II and the immense hardships of the war, in which the USSR lost some 20 million people.

The defeat of Nazi Germany is integral to modern Russia's identity and to Putin's justification of the war in Ukraine as a comparable struggle.

Associated Press writer Jim Heintz, based in Tallinn, Estonia, has covered the entirety of Putin's tenure as Russian leader.

FILE - President Vladimir Putin looks at a military parade after his inauguration ceremony in Moscow on May 7, 2018. Putin begins another term as Russian president in an opulent Kremlin inauguration taking place on Tuesday. (Dmitry Azarov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin sits for an interview with the Russia-1 TV channel in the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, on June 3, 2022. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a visit to his campaign headquarters after the presidential election in Moscow on March 18, 2024. Putin begins his fifth term as Russian president in an opulent Kremlin inauguration on Tuesday after destroying his political opposition, launching a devastating war in Ukraine and consolidating power. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this photo taken from video released by Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry on Dec. 30, 2023, firefighters extinguish burning cars after shelling in Belgorod, Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who begins another 6-year term on Tuesday, launched a war in Ukraine despite expectations the invasion would bring international opprobrium and harsh economic sanctions, as well as cost Russia dearly in the blood of its soldiers. (Russia Emergency Situations Ministry telegram channel via AP, File)

Graves of Russian servicemen killed in Ukraine in a cemetery in Russia’s Volgograd region on Saturday, March 30, 2024. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s influence is so dominant that other officials could only stand by submissively as he launched a war in Ukraine despite expectations the invasion would bring international opprobrium and harsh economic sanctions, as well as cost Russia dearly in the blood of its soldiers. (AP Photo)

FILE - Oleg Orlov, co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Memorial, gestures from a glass cage while on trial on charges of repeated discrediting the Russian military, in Moscow on Feb. 27, 2024. Orlov was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Police officers detain a man laying flowers to honor Alexei Navalny at a monument to victims of Soviet repression in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Feb. 16, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this photo released by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 19, 2024, a Russian tank fires at Ukrainian troops from a position near the border with Ukraine in Russia’s Belgorod region. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with a soldier and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stands next to him, smiling, during a visit at a military training centre of the Western Military District in Ryazan Region, Russia on Oct. 20, 2022. Putin begins his fifth term as Russian president in an opulent Kremlin inauguration on Tuesday after destroying his political opposition, launching a devastating war in Ukraine and consolidating power. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses members of the Defense Ministry, the National Guard, the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the Federal Guard Service at the Kremlin, in Moscow on June 27, 2023. Putin will begins his fifth term as Russian president in an opulent Kremlin inauguration on Tuesday after destroying his political opposition, launching a devastating war in Ukraine and consolidating power. (Sergei Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A 20-minute drive separates the historic Maracana Stadium from the Complexo do Alemao, the biggest complex of favelas in Rio de Janeiro and one of the most impoverished and violent.

One of its residents, 15-year-old soccer player Kaylane Alves dos Santos, hopes her powerful shots and impressive dribbles will allow her to cover that short distance to the stadium in three years to play for Brazil's national team in the final of the 2027 Women's World Cup.

That chance, once remote, became more realistic on Friday when FIFA members voted to make Brazil the first Latin American country to host the Women's World Cup.

Local organizers have suggested that both the opening match and the final are likely to be played at the 78,000-seat Maracana Stadium that staged the final matches of the 1950 and the 2014 men's soccer World Cups.

Teenager dos Santos knows the hurdles for her to ever play for Brazil remain enormous — in 2027 or later. She doesn't have a professional club to play for, she only trains twice a week, and her nutrition is not the best due to limited food choices in the favela.

Most importantly, she often can't leave home to play when police and drug dealers shoot at each other in Complexo do Alemao.

Still, she is excited and hopeful about Brazil hosting the Women's World Cup, resulting in a big boost to her confidence.

“We have a dream (of playing for Brazil in the Women’s World Cup), and if we have that chance it will be the best thing in the world,” dos Santos told The Associated Press this week after a training session in the Complexo do Alemao.

She and about 70 other young women in the Bola de Ouro project train on an artificial grass pitch in a safe region of the 3-square kilometers long (1.15 square mile) community.

If not on the pitch, Dos Santos and her teammates will be happy enough just to attend games of a tournament they could only dream of watching up close until FIFA members voted for Brazil over the Germany-Netherlands-Belgium joint bid. The Women's World Cup was played for the first time in 1991 and will have its 10th edition in 2027.

A five-time champion in men's soccer, more than any other country, Brazil has yet to win its first Women's World Cup trophy. By then, it is unlikely superstar Marta, aged 38, will be in the roster. Dos Santos and thousands of young female footballers who have overcome sexism to take up the sport are keen to get inspiration from the six-time FIFA player of the year award winner and write their own history on home soil.

As many female footballers experience in Brazil, dos Santos and her teenage teammates rarely play without boys on their teams. Until recently, they also had to share the pitch with five-year-old girls, which didn't allow the older players to train as hard as they would like.

“(The Women's World Cup in Brazil) makes us focus even more in trying to get better. We need to be able to play in this,” said 16-year-old Kamilly Alves dos Santos, Kaylane's sister and also a player on the team. “We need to keep training, sharing our things."

Their team, which has already faced academy sides of big local clubs like Botafogo, is trained by two city activists who once tried to become players themselves.

Diogo Chaves, 38, and Webert Machado, 37, work hard to get some of their players to the Women's World Cup in Brazil, but if that's not possible they will be happy by keeping them in school.

Their non-profit group is funded solely by donations.

“At first, basically, the children wanted to eat. But now we have all of this,” said Chaves, adding that the project began three years ago. “We believe they can get to the national team. But our biggest challenge is opportunity. There's little for children from here, not only for the girls.”

Machado said the two coaches “are not here to fool anyone” and do not believe all the young women they train will become professionals.

“What we want from them is for they to be honest people, we all need to have our character,” Machado said. “We want to play and make them become nurses, doctors, firefighters, some profession in the future."

The two dos Santos sisters, as do many of their teammates, believe that reaching the Women's World Cup as Complexo do Alemao residents is possible. Brazil has more than 100 professional women's soccer teams, with other players living in favelas, too.

But it won't be easy.

“Sometimes I have to cancel appointments because of shootings, because there’s barricades on fire,” she said. “Sometimes police tell us to go back home, they say we can’t come down and point their guns to me, to my mother,” said Kamilly.

Her sister hopes the pair will overcome the violence, against the odds.

“I want to earn my living in soccer, fulfill all dreams," Kaylane says. "And I want to leave the Complexo do Alemao. I want to make it happen.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

An overhead view of the pitch where young women take part in a soccer training session run by the Bola de Ouro social program at the Complexo da Alemao favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Agatha smiles during a soccer training session run by the Bola de Ouro social program, at the Complexo da Alemao favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 16, 2024. Young women are participating in soccer programs led by community trainers, where they receive both sports and personal development training. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Agatha strikes a ball during a soccer training session run by the Bola de Ouro social program, at the Complexo da Alemao favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 16, 2024. Young women are participating in soccer programs led by community trainers, where they receive both sports and personal development training. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Young women ready breakfast for fellow participants as part of a soccer training session run by the Bola de Ouro social program, at the Complexo da Alemao favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 16, 2024. Young women are participating in soccer programs led by community trainers, where they receive both sports and personal development training. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Relatives watch a soccer training session for young women run by the Bola de Ouro social program at the Complexo da Alemao favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 16, 2024. Young women are participating in soccer programs led by community trainers, where they receive both sports and personal development training. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Young women and their coach Dioguinho bring it in for a team huddle at the start of a soccer training session run by the Bola de Ouro social program, at the Complexo da Alemao favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 16, 2024. Young women are participating in soccer programs led by community trainers, where they receive both sports and personal development training. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)