By Galina Korol | 2023-12-21

KYIV -- Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to run in next year's presidential election, which he is largely expected to win.

Putin confirmed earlier this month that he will run in the 2024 presidential election to be held over three days beginning March 15.

He became eligible for a fifth term as president of Russia thanks to constitutional amendments adopted in 2020 that reset his count of previous presidential terms to zero.

If he wins in 2024, he will surpass Joseph Stalin as the longest serving leader of Russia.

Putin's candidacy announcement was unsurprising and highly theatrical.

During the announcement on December 8, Artem Zhoga, speaker of the parliament of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), approached Putin with a message delivered in front of video cameras.

"You have done so much for our Donbas. On behalf of all our people, our Donbas, and annexed lands, I would like to ask you to run in the election," Zhouga said, the BBC's Russian service reported.

"Thanks to your decision, we gained freedom and the right to vote. And we want to take part in the election of the president of the Russian Federation. And you are our president."

Putin responded with a brief pause and then announced his candidacy, which was unanimously endorsed by the congress of the United Russia party on Sunday (December 17).

'Boring'

Russian opposition politicians and activists expressed little hope for a free and fair election, even as officials announced Wednesday that 16 candidates have filed to run for Russia's presidency.

"So far, we have received applications from 16 candidates," Central Elections Commission (CEC) chairwoman Ella Pamfilova was cited as saying by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

Moscow has for years sidelined opposition figures from elections and political life, a clampdown that accelerated after the Kremlin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

"Quite boring and without intrigue," is how Polina Kostyleva, a Russian activist with election watchdog Golos, predicted next year's election will be.

"Officially, the turnout will be high, and our main candidate will get 80%," she told Kontur.

The White House also commented on Putin's decision to run again.

"Well, that's going to be one humdinger of a horse race, isn't it? That's all I've got to say on that," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said sarcastically, responding to a question during a press briefing December 8.

Opposition candidates are allowed on the ballot only to demonstrate how much support there is for Putin, according to Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko, chairman of the board of the Penta Center for Political Studies.

"There is still a debate going on whether to allow [other] candidates' registration. Being nominated is one thing, but going through the filters [that suppress any real chances of winning] is another matter," he said.

"And in particular, will [Grigory] Yavlinsky, who wants to act as this agitator for peace and the end of the war, be allowed to run?"

Yavlinsky is the founder and leader of the Yabloko Party, the only party in Russia to protest the war and call for peace.

"If the Yabloko Party leader is allowed to run, it will be done for a single reason," Fesenko said. "To demonstrate how little support for such a candidate there is, how little support for peace there is in Russia, and to show that people support Putin."

The 2024 election will be the usual "reappointment of Vladimir Putin," who needs to show the world that he is "in control of the situation," Russian opposition politician Ilya Ponomaryov told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on November 24.

"His supporters in the presidential administration need to make money from this election. This is a test of the loyalty of elites within the country," Ponomaryov said.

Preparations in occupied territories

"Of course, from the perspective of the occupied [Ukrainian] territories, it is a demonstration of control and hardens the reality of their occupation," Ponomaryov told RFE/RL.

The Kremlin will use sham elections in occupied territories to contend that "people living there 'voted' for Russian politicians, namely, Vladimir Putin. But, of course, it simply has no relationship with a real election," he said.

The campaign in the temporarily occupied territories is already in full swing, said Andrey Orlov, a Melitopol resident and director of the Center for Strategic Development of Territories.

"Certain agitators -- also in quotation marks, 'thought leaders' -- are arriving, who instill the 'correct' understanding of it all, who rally young people around ideas associated with the 'correct' candidate and raise banners with slogans like: 'Our leader is Putin,' 'We need Putin to win so Russian will win,' 'If Putin wins, Russia wins,'" Orlov told Kontur.

They are using such claims and billboard slogans to zombify various segments of the population, said Orlov.

However, for most ordinary residents of the temporarily occupied territories, these slogans resemble a circus "because in these almost two years of occupation they well understand that they are essentially being played for fools to a large extent," said Orlov.

The leaders of the Russian occupation administrations have also been tasked with bringing the level of forced acceptance of Russian citizenship in occupied Ukrainian territories to at least 85%, according to Orlov, and that is exactly the percentage that Putin plans to win with.

Those officials can be expected to engage in voter bribery presented as "social assistance," vote tampering, and the transport and coercion of adults to vote, he said.

"They are already preparing buses to come to the courtyard [of various apartment buildings], where they will catch people. This is how they forcibly lead people to the ballot box."

"Clearly, there won't be a choice about whether you vote 'for' or 'against' or choose some other candidate. And it won't be a secret ballot in this case," said Orlov.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has already responded to the preparation for illegitimate elections in Ukrainian territories.

The ministry, on its website, called on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia's intention to hold a presidential election in occupied Ukraine, and urged sanctions to be imposed on those involved in organizing and conducting the election.

"We ... call on foreign countries not to send their citizens as observers to these pseudo-elections," the ministry said in a statement on December 9.

"Those [foreign observers] who participate will face prosecution in line with Ukrainian law. Any election in Russia has nothing to do with democracy.

"They serve only as a tool to keep the Russian regime in power," it said.