Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2024 campaign headquarters has opened its doors in Moscow one week after he gave an end-of-the-year marathon press conference there, state media reported Thursday.The campaign headquarters at the Gostiny Dvor venue near the Kremlin is open to visitors on weekdays during working hours, according to the news broadcaster Rossia 1.The headquarters will start gathering the 300,000 signatures needed to nominate Putin between Saturday and the end of January. It will close its doors on Election Day, which will take place over a three-day period on March 15-17, 2024.Actor Vladimir Mashkov, doctor Marina Lysenko and Lieutenant Colonel Artyom Zhoga were named co-chairpersons of Putin’s campaign headquarters.Putin told Zhoga about his decision to participate in the upcoming vote following an awards ceremony for army personnel at the Kremlin earlier in December.

A video later released by the Kremlin captured the moment Zhoga asked the Russian leader to stand for re-election. “This is one of the most important days of our great Russia,” said Mashkov on the campaign headquarters’ opening day.The Vedomosti business daily reported that Putin’s campaign headquarters has updated its public-facing figures while keeping other key members from the 2018 presidential race.“Work in the headquarters opens additional opportunities for its frontmen, though it doesn’t guarantee any career advancements,” political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov told the publication.Russia’s war in Ukraine, approaching its 23rd month, looms large over the 2024 presidential election.

Putin is casting the invasion as part of a greater struggle between Russia and the West. Voting will also take place in what Russia calls its “new territories” — partially occupied regions of Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed last year. The elections in occupied Ukrainian regions are seen as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to solidify political control there and legitimize them as Russian territory.Nearly all opponents of the regime are now either in exile or imprisoned following a sweeping political crackdown that gained fierce momentum after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.