Russia: Vladimir Putin will remain in power beyond 2024

Vladimir Putin has decided to run in the presidential elections in March, a decision that will keep him in power at least until 2030, as the head of the Kremlin believes he must lead Russia through the most dangerous period in recent decades, six sources told Reuters.

After defusing an armed mutiny by the leader of the Wagner mercenary group in June, Putin has moved to shore up support from his base in security forces, the military and regional voters outside Moscow, while Wagner has put himself in firmly at bay.

Russian spending on defense, weapons and the general budget has skyrocketed, while Putin has made numerous public appearances, including in the regions, in recent months.

“The decision has been made: it will be presented“said one of the sources familiar with the planning.

Another source, also familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking, confirmed that a decision has been made and that Putin’s advisors were preparing his participation. Three other sources stated that the decision to run in the March 2024 presidential elections had already been made.

The sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of Kremlin policy.

One of them said that the suggestion was planned for within a few weeks, confirming a report in the Kommersant newspaper last month.

Although many diplomats, spies and senior officials have said they expect Putin to remain in power for life, there has so far been no concrete confirmation of Putin’s plans to run for re-election.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Putin had not yet commented on the matter, adding: “The campaign has not yet been officially announced.”.

Russia at war

Putin, 71, who received the presidency from Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has been president longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin, even surpassing Leonid Brezhnev’s 18 years.

Diplomats say there is no serious rival who could threaten Putin’s chances at the polls, should the current president run again. The former KGB spy enjoys an approval rating of 80%, can count on the support of the State and state media, and there is almost no public opposition to his continuation in power.

But Putin faces the most serious challenges of any Kremlin chief since Mikhail Gorbachev had to deal with the crumbling Soviet Union more than three decades ago.

The Ukraine war has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and the resulting Western sanctions have dealt the biggest external blow to the Russian economy in decades.

Inflation has accelerated and the ruble has fallen since the start of the war and defense spending will account for almost a third of Russia’s total budget spending in 2024, according to draft government plans.

But the biggest direct threat to Putin’s continued power came in June, when Russia’s most powerful mercenary, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a brief mutiny.

Prigozhin died in a plane crash two months after the mutiny and Putin has since used the Defense Ministry and the National Guard to extend his allies’ control over the remnants of the Wagner force.

The West presents Putin as a war criminal and dictator who has led Russia into an imperialist land grab that has weakened Russia and strengthened the Ukrainian state, while uniting the West and giving NATO a renewed sense of mission.

Putinhowever, presents the war as part of a much broader struggle with the United States that, according to the Kremlin elite, aims to divide Russia, seize its vast natural resources, and then move on to settle scores with China.

“Russia faces the combined power of the West, so a major change would not be advisable“said one of the sources.

For some Russians, however, the war has shown the failings of post-Soviet Russia.

Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny claims Putin has led Russia down a strategic dead end to ruin, building a fragile system of corrupt sycophants that will end up bequeathing chaos instead of stability.

“Russia is going backwards”, Oleg Orlov, one of Russia’s most respected human rights defenders, told Reuters in July. “We left communist totalitarianism, but now we have returned to another type of totalitarianism.”