Vladimir Putin will seek the presidency again as an independent candidate with a broad base of support but not as a party candidate, Russian news agencies reported today, citing supporters.

More than 700 politicians and sports and culture figures who make up an initiative group met in Moscow today and unanimously endorsed Putin’s candidacy as an independent candidate, Russian news agencies reported.

Putin, who has been in power as either president or prime minister for more than two decades, has announced he will seek another six-year term in elections in March next year, which he is expected to win comfortably.

Putin will not run for the presidency as a candidate of the ruling United Russia party, although he has its full support, but as an independent candidate, senior party official Andrei Turchak said, according to the RIA news agency.

“More than 3.5 million party members and supporters will take an active part in the election campaign,” Turchak said, according to RIA, noting that Putin was one of the founders of United Russia.

Sergei Mironov, a senior politician from Putin’s pro-Putin Just Russia party, also said, according to RIA, that Putin would be an independent candidate and that signatures would be collected in support of him.

For Putin, 71, the election is a formality: with the support of the state, the state media and almost no public opposition from the establishment, he is considered certain to win.

Putin’s supporters say he has restored order, national pride and some of the gravitas Russia lost during the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that his war in Ukraine — which Putin calls a “special military business”– is justified.

A years-long crackdown on opponents and critics bolstered by sweeping new “fake news” and “defamation of the military” laws has resulted in critics and opponents of the war being sentenced to long prison terms or fleeing abroad as the space for dissent steadily shrinks .