People in Putin's Circle Want to Limit His Hold on Power: Fiona Hill

Some of those in Russian President Vladimir Putin's circle don't think he would be "justified" in serving more terms as the nation's leader, according to former presidential adviser Fiona Hill.

Hill, who served as senior director for European and Russian affairs on Donald Trump's National Security Council, talked about Putin's reign and his ongoing war in Ukraine with Foreign Policy in an interview published Thursday. "The more weakened he is [and] the less legitimate he appears, the less it appears that he's popular and the more incentive there is for others to try to maneuver around him to push on succession," she said.

"Putin wants to get this conflict over with," Hill added in a reference to the Russia-Ukraine war. "He wants to seem legitimate. He wants us to be the ones who feel that we don't have time—when he also has a clock ticking."

As he faces widespread condemnation for his months-long war on Ukraine, as well as rumors of health problems that Russia has denied, talk about a potential successor for the longtime Russian leader has emerged. But after Putin signed a law last year that gives him the opportunity to stay in power until 2036, the chances that he would willingly leave office anytime soon seemed even slimmer.

Putin, 69, has maintained a steady grip on power in Russia for more than two decades while serving as the country's prime minister and president. When former Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned in December 1999, he appointed Putin as acting president. Putin officially won his first presidential election in March 2000 and his second in March 2004.

He became prime minister in May 2008 because of a constitutional rule that prevented him from seeking more than two consecutive terms as president. He was reelected as president in 2012, after Russia extended presidential terms from four to six years. He again won reelection in March 2018 and is still serving that term, which will expire in 2024.

The law that Putin signed in April 2021 reset the terms he has served back to zero and could allow him to seek two additional terms. If he chooses to do so and succeeds, the additional 12 years would make him president until 2036.

Hill is not the first observer to indicate that some in Russia may want Putin to leave office.

A report published in May by the independent news website Meduza said that Putin's decision to go to war with Ukraine "horrified most Kremlin and ministerial officials, who feared that Western sanctions would ruin their careers and maybe even their lives."

Sources with ties to the Kremlin said that discussion about a Putin successor had been on the rise, Meduza reported.

"It's not that they want to overthrow Putin right now or that they're plotting a conspiracy, but there's an understanding, or a wish, that he won't be governing the state maybe in the foreseeable future," one of Meduza's sources reportedly said.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Kremlin and to Hill via the Brookings Institution, where she is a senior fellow.