VLADIMIR Putin is set to run in next year’s presidential election, Kremlin sources have revealed.
The sham election would keep the tyrant, 71, in power until at least 2030.
APVladimir Putin is set to re-run for Russian President next year[/caption]
Putin was handed presidency by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999.
He has already served as president for longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin – beating even Leonid Brezhnev’s 18-year tenure.
Putin’s advisers are now preparing for Putin’s campaign in the lead up to March’s election, insiders told Reuters.
But the election is a formality if he runs – with the support of the state, the state media and almost no mainstream public dissent making his win certain.
Opinion polls show the tyrant has approval ratings of 80 per cent inside Russia – despite his stalling invasion of Ukraine.
One anonymous Kremlin source said: “The decision has been made – he will run.”
While many foreign diplomats, spies and officials say they expect Putin to stay in power for life, there has until now been no specific confirmation of his plans to run in the election.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Putin has yet to make any announcement on whether he will re-run.
He said: “The president has not made any statements.
“And the campaign has not been officially announced yet.”
Peskov said in September that if Putin decided to run, then no one would be able to compete with him.
It comes after the Kremlin was forced to issue an extraordinary statement denying Putin was dead.
Wild claims the dictator had passed at his Valdai palace spiralled on Telegram last month.
But in an extraordinary denial, Peskov rubbished reports and said they were “absurd information canard”.
Bombshell spy documents leaked to The Sun previously appeared to confirm the dictator has pancreatic cancer and early-stage Parkinson’s disease.