OREANDA-NEWS. Dmitry Peskov, the head of the Kremlin’s press service, commented on the words of Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of Rossiya Segodnya information agency, about Putin’s search for a successor.

Earlier, Kiselyov at a meeting with students of the Moscow State University faculty of journalism, said that a support by the current president of his successor is a “global trend.” For example, the president of France Francois Hollande supported the current head of state Emmanuel Macron, and US leader Barack Obama spoke in support of Hillary Clinton, who lost the political race to the current US President Donald Trump.

Kiselev stressed that the people will elect a president, however, the preparation of a successor indicates the responsibility of national leader.

Peskov, commenting on this, said that nowadays Russia is in the initial stage of the presidential cycle, so no one in the Kremlin is thinking about choosing a successor for Putin, but “everybody is doing his hard work”. The Press Secretary added that the next presidential election is still a long way off.

According to the Constitution of Russian Federation, the authority of Putin as a president will expire in 2024. Without changing the law, he will not be able to participate in the next election.

In July 2019, Valery Fedorov, the head of Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, supposed that Putin was looking for a successor among new-generation politicians aged 40–50 who would be distinguished by responsibility, modernity and dynamism, a strong character, patriotism and experience in public administration.