Vladimir Putin supporters yesterday unveiled plans to draw more than 50,000 people onto the streets of Moscow in a show of force ahead of the strongman’s inauguration for a third presidential term.

Russia’s current prime minister will take back the Kremlin seat he already held from 2000 to 2008 in a swearing-in ceremony tomorrow that follows his thumping March 4 election win against only token opposition.

The margin of his victory took much of the steam out of mass protests that swept Moscow in the winter months and seemed to briefly catch the authorities off guard.

But the protest movement now intends to hold a self-proclaimed ‘March of millions’ today that was authorised by the city after weeks of negotiations but officially limited to just 5,000 people.

Meanwhile a coalition of Putin supporters said they did not need a permit from Moscow officials to gather for a “celebration” at Victory Park – a site dedicated to Russia’s defeat of Napoleon in 1812.

The event was timed to coincide with the first anniversary of Putin’s decision to create a new movement called the All-Russian People’s Front (ONF).

The group is tipped to become Putin’s primary power base during the first of what could potentially become two new six-year terms for the 59-year-old leader.

A top city official said Putin’s group did not need permission to bring out such large numbers onto a public square because “what they will be having is not a rally or a march or a protest”.

“It will be a mass cultural event,” Moscow regional security department head Alexei Mayorov told Russian news agencies.

Russia’s increasingly powerful Orthodox Church also said it was installing a larger clapper in one of the Kremlin’s bells for a “presidential ring” when Patriarch Kirill reads a special prayer blessing Putin’s new term.