Vladimir Putin may soon announce that he will run in the 2024 presidential election, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Tuesday, paving the way for the Kremlin leader to stay in power until 2030.

Russian officials suspect that Putin may announce at a conference in November about his participation in the elections next March, sources close to the Kremlin, cited by Reuters, told Kommersant.

The newspaper, one of Russia’s most respected, said there were other scenarios for what Putin might do at the conference and that the final decision rested with him. The Kremlin has not yet commented on the article.

The longest-reigning Russian leader since Stalin

Putin, who took over from Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has ruled Russia longer than any other Russian leader since Joseph Stalin, even surpassing the 18-year reign of Leonid Brezhnev.

This week, October 7, Putin turns 71.

While many diplomats, intelligence chiefs and other officials have said they expect Putin to remain in power for life, there has been no confirmation yet of his plans to run for president in 2024.

Last month, Putin said he would announce his plans only after parliament called a presidential election. By law, parliament must do so in December.

Last month, Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said that if Putin decides to run, no one will be able to compete with him.

Vladimir Putin has no competitors, but he has enough problems

While Putin may have no rivals, the former KGB spy faces the most serious challenges of any Kremlin leader since Mikhail Gorbachev dealt with the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly four decades ago.

The war in Ukraine provoked the biggest confrontation with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the biggest external shock to the Russian economy in decades.

In June, Putin faced a failed coup by Russia’s most powerful mercenary, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a plane crash.

The West classifies Putin as a war criminal and dictator who plunged Russia into an imperial-style war that weakened the country and strengthened Ukrainian statehood, as well as Western unity.

Putin says the war is part of a much broader struggle with the United States, which Kremlin elites say is bent on splitting Russia, grabbing its natural resources and then returning to settling scores with China.