Putin says he hopes to eventually name a successor, urges Russians to get vaccinated against Covid-19

‘A time will come when, I hope, I can say that such and such a person is worthy in my opinion of leading such a wonderful country,’ he said
Russian president also claimed the US was last week involved in an incident involving a British destroyer off the coast of Moscow-annexed Crimea

Vladimir Putin

Reuters

Published: 9:14pm, 30 Jun 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said the time would come when he would name his possible successor in the Kremlin, but said the choice would ultimately lie with voters.

Putin, 68, has been in power as president or prime minister since the turn of the century. His current six-year term in the Kremlin is due to end in 2024 and his remarks are being closely parsed for clues as to whether he plans to extend his rule.

Russia changed its constitution last year at Putin’s behest allowing him to run for two more six-year terms in the Kremlin, and potentially remain president until 2036.

The Kremlin is at a delicate political juncture with its relations with the West badly strained and its oil-dependent economy emerging from the pandemic with high inflation and a weak rouble, sensitive issues for voters.

Russia holds parliamentary elections in September that are seen as a dry run for the 2024 presidential election. In the run-up, authorities have cracked down hard on the opposition and outlawed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s network as “extremist”.

“A time will come when, I hope, I can say that such and such a person is worthy in my opinion of leading such a wonderful country like Russia, our homeland,” Putin said.

The Russian leader was speaking during his annual question and answers session on state TV that the Kremlin uses for political messaging and to show he is in touch with regular Russians’ day-to-day concerns.

“A signal. There will be a successor,” Alexei Chesnakov, a political analyst who used to work in the presidential administration, wrote on Telegram messenger.

Putin, a KGB officer in the Cold War, came to power after being named acting president in December 1999 by his ailing predecessor Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Soviet president.

Putin also claimed the US was last week involved in an incident involving a British destroyer off the coast of Moscow-annexed Crimea.

Russia said it fired warning shots to ward off the British navy’s HMS Defender as it passed near the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea in what it said was a violation of its territorial waters.

“This, of course, was a provocation – that is completely obvious,” Putin said. “It was complex and was carried out not only by the British, but also by the Americans.”

Russia opens arms to Myanmar general, stops short of full embrace

As his evidence, Putin said that before the UK ship entered waters claimed by Russia last week, an “American strategic reconnaissance aircraft” had taken off from a Nato military airfield in Greece. He did not provide any more details.

Britain has defended the ship’s route, saying the HMS Defender was making “an innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law”.

Putin also said he opposed introducing mandatory vaccinations in Russia despite a surge in coronavirus infections in the country and sluggish inoculation rates.

“I do not support mandatory vaccinations,” Putin said.

Asked if he supported a new nationwide lockdown, he said regional authorities were instead promoting localised mandatory vaccinations and other measures to avoid introducing new quarantines.

Russia earlier on Wednesday reported 669 coronavirus deaths over the past 24 hours, a record number of fatalities for the second day in a row, according to a government tally. The country is grappling with a spike of infections spurred by the highly infectious Delta variant, with authorities struggling to convince Russians to get vaccinated.

Russia opens arms to Myanmar general, stops short of full embrace

Putin on Wednesday said some 23 million Russians had received the jab and said the country’s home-grown vaccines were better than foreign alternatives, naming AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

“We are doing fine,” he said.

The 68-year-old leader also addressed widespread vaccine scepticism in the country and urged Russians to listen to “specialists”.

“It is necessary to listen, not to people who understand little about this and spread rumours, but to specialists,” he told Russians, the majority of whom polls show oppose receiving coronavirus jabs.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse