Vladimir Putin has has announced his candidacy in Russia’s 2024 presidential election — which he is all but certain to win.
The Kremlin is rallying support for Putin’s fifth presidential term by pitching him as the defender of traditional Russian values against the “liberal” West as the war in Ukraine grinds on.
Putin has been in high office for almost a quarter of a century, longer than any ruler since Josef Stalin.
The former KGB spy can still count on wide domestic political support despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his countrymen’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia -– including one on the Kremlin itself -– and corroded its aura of invincibility, AP reports.
The only challenge to that reign came in June when mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin raised widespread speculation Putin could be losing his grip, but he emerged with no permanent scars.
Prigozhin, however, died a few weeks later in a plane crash.
