The president of Russia, Vladimir Putinhas confirmed that will repeat as a candidate in the elections next March, a hypothesis that was already taken for granted but that the Kremlin had avoided making official until this Friday, also coinciding with the official call for the event.

Putin confirmed his candidacy during an awards ceremony, in a conversation with some of the recognized people. When questioned by an interlocutor who urged him to appear, the president clarified that he would do so, according to the Interfax news agency.

Specifically, the president of the Parliament of the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk, Artiom Zhoga, conveyed at the meeting the “worry” which, according to him, existed in the “reunified” areas of Ukraine about the future candidacy, suggesting that the future of the military offensive launched in February 2022 is at stake.

Putin has assured that the time has come to make a decision: “I will run for the Presidency of the Russian Federation“. He considers that “he cannot do anything else” in the current circumstances.

Three days of voting

A day after the Federation Council, the Upper House of Parliament, called the elections for March 17, the Russian Electoral Commission adopted a resolution this Friday that extends voting days to three daysso that schools will open on the 15th.

Putin is currently serving his fourth term at the head of Russiaalthough since the fall of Boris Yeltsin He has always held some position of power in the Eurasian nation, either as prime minister – from 2008 to 2012 – or as president – from 2000 to 2008 and from 2012 to the present.

Putin handed over the Presidency for four years to his ally Dimitri Medvedev, since the law established a maximum limit of two consecutive terms. If this rule were maintained, it could not be presented again in 2024, but an ‘ad hoc’ constitutional reform set the counter to zero and opened the door to two more periods of six years, which would allow it to continue until 2036.