"From all the guys serving, from all my friends and acquaintances, we all ask him to run in the presidential elections, to which he replied that times can be difficult, but for now he will be with the people and will run for office," said Lt. Col. Artyom Zhoga, the commander of the ultranationalist Sparta Battalion.
The low-key announcement serves the carefully orchestrated purpose of showing "how modest Putin is," so busy with real affairs amid the invasion of Ukraine that he does not have time to parade his political ambition in front of television cameras, said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of the R.Politik, a Russian political consultancy now based in Paris.
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