Vladimir Putin will run in the March 2024 presidential election and hold onto power until at least 2030, Reuters is reporting citing several Russian souces.
Aides are reportedly preparing a campaign for the Russian president, who is already the country’s longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin.
Putin, 71, only made the decision recently and is due to announce it soon, one of the six people quoted by Reuters said.
"The decision has been made - he will run,” another confirmed.
All six, which included someone "with knowledge of planning" and a foreign diplomat, spoke on the condition of anonymity “due to the sensitivity of Kremlin politics”.
One said: "The world we look out upon is very dangerous.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on these specific reports.
But, in September, he told Russia's RBC business news service: "The president has not yet announced that he will nominate his candidacy.
"But if we assume that the president stands as a candidate, then it is obvious that there can be no real competition for the president at this current stage."
Putin enjoys approval ratings of 80% amid the Russian public. On top of this, he has the support of the Russian state and the state-run media.
But Putin, who has been in power since 1999, is also facing some of the most serious challenges ever experienced by a Kremlin chief.
Russia’s war with Ukraine has placed it in the middle of a conflict with the West, which has resulted in crippling sanctions affecting its people.
Western media has reported rumours of dissent among some Russian officials and soldiers, as well as speculation that 71-year-old Putin’s health is declining. This has all been denied and dismissed by the Kremlin several times.
In June, Russia's most powerful mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin tried to pull off a mutiny when he seized a military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and marched his fighters to Moscow.
Although it ultimately failed, and Prigozhin died in a plane crash in August, it was seen as the biggest-ever threat to Putin’s power.
Putin, a former KGB agent, has dominated Russia, as president or prime minister, for more than two decades.
He has prided himself on bringing stability to the vast nation after the chaos that engulfed it following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union – until he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24 last year.
The polls also show that around 70% of the population, who rely on the state-run media for news, support the Russian military in Ukraine.
