Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday refused to assess a possible candidacy of Russia’s head of state, Vladimir Putin, for the next presidential elections, scheduled for mid-March next 2024.
«It is still early, the campaign has not yet started. The Kremlin has a lot of current affairs and the president has a very tight and very busy schedule,» Peskov said in statements to the media.
In this line, the Kremlin spokesman stressed that Putin is focused on the activities of his agenda, which is largely dominated by the war events in Ukraine, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Peskov also declined to evaluate the words of former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin – head of government for a few months in 1999 under the presidency of Boris Yeltsin – who urged the president to run for re-election.
These questions launched by the Kremlin spokesman come after the head of the Central Electoral Commission of Russia, Ella Pamfilova, announced that the foundations had been laid to launch the electoral campaign.
«Naturally, we are preparing (…) Time flies by without us noticing. Everything that can be prepared now (…) is being prepared. We are setting it in motion with a view to the conduct of the presidential campaign,» Pamfilova said.
Finally, the head of the Central Election Commission acknowledged that she was «fully aware» of the difficulties that this vote could entail in the framework of the «current conditions», in a clear allusion to the war in Ukraine.
President Putin is currently serving his fourth term at the head of Russia and since the fall of the aforementioned Yeltsin has always held some position of power in the Eurasian nation, either as head of government -from 2008 to 2012- or as head of state -from 1999 to 2008, and from 2012 to the present-.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
