Kremlin spokesman says Putin will be re-elected with over 90 percent of the vote, later clarifies this was his personal opinion

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The New York Times that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be re-elected with 90 percent of the vote in the 2024 Russian presidential election.

Peskov was quoted by The New York Times as saying “our presidential election is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy. Mr. Putin will be re-elected next year with more than 90 percent of the vote.”

Asked about Russia’s war against Ukraine, he said “there are currently no grounds for an agreement. We will continue the operation for the foreseeable future.” He also said that Russia doesn’t seek to annex more territory and that “we just want to control all the land we have now written into our Constitution as ours.” After annexing Ukrainian territory, the self-proclaimed “DNR” and “LNR,” as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, were added to the Russian constitution.

Later, Dmitry Peskov told RBK that American journalists “misquoted” him “as usual.” He clarified that he, personally, is confident that Putin will be elected, “based on the level of consolidation around Putin.” He added that “the question was about the elections and the answer was that elections are what a democracy demands and Putin himself decided to hold them, but theoretically, they don’t even have to be held. Because it’s clear that Putin will be elected. That’s completely my personal opinion. That’s how I was misquoted.”