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Vladimir Putin delivering a speech during a ceremony to present Gold Star medals to Heroes of Russia on 8 December 2023. (Photo by Valery SHARIFULIN / POOL / AFP)
- Vladimir Putin has called it: he will stand for re-election in March next year.
- Putin was widely expected to remain in office, but had not said as much to date.
- He has effectively held power since 1999.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has decided to run in presidential elections next March, news agencies reported Friday, allowing the Kremlin leader to extend his decades-long grip on power.
Putin told Lieutenant Colonel Artyom Zhoga, a Russian military officer, about his decision to participate in the upcoming vote following an awards ceremony for army personnel at the Kremlin, state-run news agencies reported.
“The president has said that he will run for president of the Russian Federation,” Zhoga was cited as saying by state-run news agency RIA Novosti.
“We all — I say this with confidence — in the reunited territories, all of Russia, we support him. We are very happy that he heard our request” to participate, Zhoga added, referring to the Ukrainian territories Moscow claims as its own.
Television footage showed Putin saying “I will run for the post of president”, in the gilded Georgievsky Hall, part of the Grand Kremlin Palace.
“I will not hide that I have had different thoughts at different times but it is now time to make a decision,” Putin told Zhoga and other decorated soldiers.
The vote is scheduled to take place between 15 March and 17 March next year.
“Our president has never avoided and does not avoid responsible decisions,” said Valentina Matvienko, the head of Russia’s upper house of parliament.
“And today he has once again confirmed this. He confirmed that at the moment of a historic choice and a historic challenge,” she added.
Putin will not face any major challengers and will likely seek as big a mandate as possible in order to conceal domestic discord ove the Ukraine conflict, analysts say.
Putin has been Russia’s president since 2012, but has effectively been in power as either president or prime minister in an unbroken stretch since 1999.
– Additional reporting by Reuters
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