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©Reuters. Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with members of public associations, youth and volunteer organizations during a flower-laying ceremony at the monument to Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, as he marks Russia’s Day of National Unity on Red Square
By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin has decided to run in March’s presidential election, a move that will keep him in power until at least 2030 as the Kremlin chief believes he must guide Russia through its most dangerous period in 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 among his core base in the security forces, the armed forces and among regional voters outside Moscow, with Wagner firmly on his heels has been set. .
Russia’s defense, arms and general budget expenditures have soared, while Putin has made numerous public appearances in recent months, including in the regions.
“The decision has been made: he will flee,” said one of the sources with knowledge of the planning.
Another source, who was also aware of the Kremlin’s thinking, confirmed that a decision had been made and that Putin’s advisers were preparing for his participation. Three other sources said the decision to participate in the March 2024 presidential election had been made.
The sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of Kremlin politics.
One of them said a choreographed hint would come in a few weeks, confirming a report from Kommersant newspaper last month.
While many diplomats, spies and officials have said they expect Putin to remain in power for life, there has so far been no specific confirmation of Putin’s plans to seek re-election.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin has not yet commented on the issue, adding: “The campaign has not yet been officially announced.”
RUSSIA AT WAR
The 71-year-old Putin, who won the presidency from Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has been president longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin, even beating Leonid Brezhnev’s 18-year term.
Diplomats say there is no serious rival who could threaten Putin’s chances at the ballot box if the incumbent president runs again. The former KGB spy has an approval rating of 80 percent, enjoys support from the state and state media, and there is virtually no public opposition to his continued rule.
Yet Putin faces the most serious challenges any Kremlin chief has faced since Mikhail Gorbachev grappled with the crumbling Soviet Union more than three decades ago.
The war in Ukraine has led to the biggest confrontation with the West since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and the resulting Western sanctions have delivered the biggest external shock to the Russian economy in decades.
Inflation has accelerated while the ruble has fallen since the start of the war, and defense spending will account for almost a third of Russia’s total budget expenditure by 2024, the government’s draft plans show.
But the biggest immediate threat to Putin’s survival came in June, when Russia’s most powerful mercenary, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a short-lived mutiny.
Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash two months after the mutiny, and Putin has since used the Defense Ministry and National Guard to expand his allies’ control over the remnants of the Wagner force.
The West portrays Putin as a war criminal and a dictator who has led Russia to imperial-style land grabs, weakening Russia and forging the Ukrainian state, while uniting the West and giving NATO a renewed sense of mission.
Putin, however, is presenting the war as part of a much broader struggle with the United States, which the Kremlin elite says aims to split Russia apart, seize its vast natural resources and then settle scores with China.
“Russia is faced with the combined power of the West, so major changes would not be appropriate,” one of the sources said.
For some Russians, however, the war has exposed the fault lines of post-Soviet Russia.
Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny says Putin has led Russia down a strategic dead-end road to ruin, building a fragile system of corrupt sycophants that will ultimately leave chaos instead of stability.
“Russia is going backwards,” Oleg Orlov, one of Russia’s most respected human rights activists, told Reuters in July. “We have left communist totalitarianism, but have now returned to a different kind of totalitarianism.”