Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly set to announce his 2024 reelection campaign, which could keep him in power through 2030.
Although the Kremlin has not officially announced Putin’s run, he has moved to garner support among the core base in the security forces, the armed forces and regional voters outside of Moscow, Reuters reported, citing six sources with knowledge of his plans.
“The decision has been made,” a source with knowledge of the planning told Reuters, according to the report. “He will run.”
The Kremlin responded to the Reuters report, saying nothing has been announced.
“Putin has not yet made any statements on this matter. And the campaign itself has not yet been officially announced,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s state-run media, TASS.
The Russian presidential elections are scheduled to take place March 17.
Putin, who turned 70 last year, has spent two stints in the president’s office starting in 2000, interrupted by four years he spent as prime minister. The Russian leader pushed through constitutional changes in 2021 that could allow him to stay in power until 2036.
While Russian public opinion is difficult to gauge, Putin’s near total control over state institutions and the media has allowed him to burnish a strongman image and remove rivals.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, an lawyer and anticorruption crusader, remains in prison after he returned to the country following a failed assassination attempted.
And Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime Putin ally who led the Wagner mercenary group, died in a plane crash in August after leading a short-lived mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in June.