Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted documents to the country’s Central Election Commission to register his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.
“He submitted them,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said of Putin and the documents, confirming the news to Russian state media. The president was nominated by a group of prominent members of the ruling United Russia party as well as famous actors, athletes and other Russian celebrities.
Putin has been either prime minister or president of Russia continuously since 1999, and is Russia’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin. He is widely expected to win the election as he faces no significant competition and his government has jailed his most serious political rivals, opposition politicians Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin.
Putin consistently saw landslide wins in previous elections, but independent observers say the votes were neither free nor far and were rife with fraud.