Russian Presidential Election Set For March 17; Navalny Says Putin Victory Could 'Destroy' Country

Vladimir Putin has been in power as prime minister or president since 1999.

Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, has set March 17 for a presidential election in which President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to run for another term, paving the way for him to stay in power until at least 2030.

The council adopted the decision during a session on December 7.

"In essence, this decision marks the start of the election campaign," said Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council.

Putin, 71, has yet to announce his intention to run in the election for another six-year term, though he is widely expected to and win a new six-year mandate and extend his tenure, already the longest of any Russian leader since Josef Stalin.

Though Putin has not officially announced he will run, the government in 2020 pushed through a massive raft of constitutional amendments, the most important of which allows Putin to seek two more six-year terms and possibly remain in office until 2036.

No serious challenger has emerged so far to run against Putin, while two of the country's best-known opposition voices, Aleksei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza, are serving lengthy prison sentences that they and their supporters say are politically motivated.

Navalny immediately responded to the setting of the election date, urging the country's 110 million eligible voters to cast ballots for "any other candidate" than Putin even though "the final results will be rigged."

"He [Putin] will destroy Russia. He has to leave," Navalny wrote in a blog post.

"For Putin, this election is a referendum on the approval of his actions. A referendum on the approval of war. Let us thwart his plans and make sure that on March 17 no one cares about the falsified result, but that all of Russia has seen and understood it: the will of the majority is that Putin has to leave."

In a separate action on December 7, Navalny's associates and supporters disguised statements calling on Russians not to vote for Putin on large billboards bearing New Year’s greetings in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and several other Russian cities.

The billboards carried QR codes that led to a website titled Russia Without Putin when people scanned them with their mobile phones.

The Federation Council decision also applies to what Russia calls its new territories: four regions of Ukraine that Moscow annexed last year after launching its full-scale invasion of that country in February 2022.

While Russia claims the regions -- Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhya -- it only partially controls them and Kyiv has pledged to retake the annexed territories.

Last month, Putin signed amendments to the law on presidential elections which restricts coverage of the poll, while also giving the Central Election Commission the right to change the election procedure on territories where martial law has been introduced.

The Kremlin has said the amendments were necessary due to "the special situation" in Russia's "new territories."