This weekend, Vladimir Putin is expected to win a six-year term as Russian president in a poll that the Kremlin claims will demonstrate public support for his invasion of Ukraine.
Since taking office as president or prime minister on December 31, 1999, Putin has suppressed all opposition and criticism, implementing a degree of internal control that guarantees the outcome is certain.
He will be able to remain in the Kremlin for at least 2030 if he wins the competition scheduled for March 15–17, which will be the longest tenure of any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the seventeenth century.
The former KGB agent is feeling very confident at the moment of the poll.
For the first time in months, Russian forces in Ukraine have made progress on the battlefield.
Additionally, Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most vocal opponent, passed away in an Arctic prison camp last month.
Despite Putin’s demonization in the West, the Kremlin claims the vote will demonstrate domestic Russian support for him and his campaign.
“He has no rivals at the moment and cannot have any,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last year.
“Nobody can realistically compete with him,” he said.
