Russia’s Vladimir Putin to run for election and stay in power until at least 2030: report

For Putin, who opinion polls show enjoys approval ratings of 80 per cent inside Russia, the election is a formality if he runs: with the support of the state, the state media and almost no mainstream public dissent, he is certain to win.

Putin recently saw missile drills, now Russia’s out of a nuclear test ban treaty

“The decision has been made – he will run,” said one of the sources who has knowledge of planning. A choreographed hint is due to come within a few weeks, another source said, confirming a Kommersant newspaper report last month.

Another source, also acquainted with the Kremlin’s thinking, confirmed that a decision had been made and that Putin’s advisers were preparing for Putin’s participation. Three other sources said the decision had been made: Putin will run.

“The world we look out upon is very dangerous,” said one of the sources.

A foreign diplomatic source, who also requested anonymity, said Putin made the decision recently and that the announcement would come soon.

While many foreign diplomats, spies and officials say they expect Putin to stay in power for life, there has until now been no specific confirmation of his plans to run in the March 2024 presidential election.

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Russia launches missile drills to test its ability to deliver ‘massive’ retaliatory nuclear strike

Russia launches missile drills to test its ability to deliver ‘massive’ retaliatory nuclear strike

Putin has not made any announcements that he will run for another term and the campaign has not yet been announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

“The president has not made any statements” about this, Peksov said when asked about a report that Putin had decided to run.

Peskov said in September that if Putin decided to run, no one would be able to compete with him.

The Kremlin has dismissed reports that Putin was unwell as disinformation spread by the West.

Putin blames West for Gaza crisis, says US needs global chaos

While Putin may face no real competition in the election, the former KGB spy faces the most serious set of challenges any Kremlin chief has faced since Mikhail Gorbachev grappled with the crumbling Soviet Union more than three decades ago.

Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash two months to the day after the mutiny.

“Russia is facing the combined might of the West so major change would not be expedient,” one of the sources said.

For some Russians, though, the war has shown the faultlines of post-Soviet Russia.

Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny says Putin has led Russia down a strategic dead end towards ruin, building a brittle system of corrupt sycophants that will ultimately bequeath chaos rather than stability.

“Russia is going backwards,” Oleg Orlov, one of Russia’s most respected human rights campaigners, said in July. “We left Communist totalitarianism but now have returned to a different kind of totalitarianism.”

Several hundred thousand Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed or wounded in just over a year and half of war, far more than the Soviet official casualties in the entire 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan.

Before his mutiny, Prigozhin castigated Putin’s generals for the war and what he cast as its incompetent execution and warned that Russia could face revolution unless the elite got serious.

“This divide can end as in 1917 with a revolution,” Prigozhin said one month before his mutiny.