Putin Surprises War Analysts

Vladimir Putin's announcement that he will run for a fifth presidential term may have surprised no one, but its location suggests the war in Ukraine will play a significant role on the campaign trail, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank has said.

Russian state media had previously said that Putin would make the announcement that he will run again as president on December 13, a day before he is scheduled to talk to the nation in the televised "Direct Line" Q&A.

However, on Thursday, Putin said he would run again at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, where he was presenting Gold Star medals for valor. It followed comments by Artem Zhoga, commander of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) "Sparta" Battalion, that people in the Russian-occupied Donbas region of Ukraine wanted Putin to run. Newsweek has emailed the Kremlin for comment on Saturday.

Under constitutional reforms he orchestrated, Putin can seek two more six-year terms after his term expires in 2024. This would allow him to remain in power until 2036, which would mean his tenure would surpass in length that of Joseph Stalin, who ruled the former Soviet Union for 29 years.

Russian elections are typically carefully controlled and marred by fraud, and so Putin is expected to comfortably win in the next ballot on March 17, 2024.

However, the ISW said that the circumstances of the announcement were part of an "obviously staged effort to seem that he was running at the request of Russian servicemen," even though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov "absurdly claimed" that Putin's decision was spontaneous.

The think tank had previously assessed that Putin's presidential campaign would probably not focus on the war in which Russian forces have suffered huge losses. There is growing discontent from the families of men drafted in Putin's partial mobilization in September 2022.

However, Friday's announcement in a military setting suggests Putin would run a campaign that "may focus on Russia's war in Ukraine more than ISW previously assessed, although the extent of this focus is unclear at this time."

The think tank said that the staged circumstances were likely to appeal to Russians directly affected by the war in Ukraine. Around 2.2 million military personnel, the Kremlin says, are under arms, as well as personnel previously wounded, and the relatives of those serving and killed in action.

It comes as the Kremlin faces the problem of dealing with the disgruntled wives and relatives of drafted troops in Ukraine who have appealed to Putin for their loved ones to be released from military service.

The opposition Russian-language Telegram channel 7 by 7 Horizontal Russia reported how a group called "Way Home" wanted to press Putin during his Q&A on returning drafted troops to Russia. In November, protests by troops' relatives took place in Moscow, the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, while an online group for soldiers' wives published a manifesto against indefinite mobilization.

The Kremlin might want Putin's announcement to convince the protesters that, despite their anger, the Russian military supports the president overall, and thus "make any further discussion of the war in Ukraine during his campaign unnecessary."

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