Something that will definitely mark of the International political scene is presidential elections in Russia. The elections are scheduled on 18th of March. If none of the candidate win the absolute majority in the first round of the elections then, in accordance with the law, the second round will be held three weeks after, 8th of April. 
In 1993. the new Constitution, that was established, brings Russia a semi-presidential regime which implies to sharing a political power between two institutions , the President and the Government. However, observing the history of Russia, seems that they were never that into any other political regime but authoritarian, so they've accomplished to adopt the modern concept of democracy to their own mentality. That shows the fourth presidential run of Vladimir Putin.
According to the latest research, Putin will be "fighting" against 66 rivals which is the biggest number of candidates in past two decade (26 candidates supported by a party and 46 independent candidates). This is possible because after the elections in 2012. the whole electoral system and the candidacy procedure were liberalized. Namely, earlier the independent candidates were asked to collect 2 million signatures to be able to announce the candidacy, and now they need an initial group with minimal 500 people and 300 000 signatures.
Some of Putin's rivals are Pavel Grudinin, representing the Russian Communists Party
Ksenia Sobchak, TV presenter who once declared that she knows she can not "beat" current president Putin, but she is hoping to get enough TV attention to criticize him, which will get her the amount of domestic voters and a presentation to the West
Ekatarina Gordon, journalist
Maxim Suraikin, the leader of the "Communists of Russia"
and many others.
What is characteristic is that a political program of a few candidates are similar in terms of future political organisation of the Russian Federation. Certain, Tristana Prisjagina, the leader of a political party "The children of USSR" is pleading for re-establishing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Also, one of the candidates, Maxim Suraikin in addition to establishing a Warsaw Pact-style defense alliance and restoring a Soviet socialist "Union State", he wants to raise the minimum wage to 70 000 rubles ($1200) and pensions to 40 000 rubles ($700). Ecatarina Gordon also has that nationalist tone in whose program the main space takes the fight for a single-mothers rights.
Vladimir Putin was chosen for the President of Russia on 26th of March 2000. in a first round of presidential elections. For his second term of office he was elected in 2004. until 2008. when he changed the positions with then the new-elected president Dmitry Medvedev. Putin then became the Prime Minister of Russia. On 4th of March 2012. he wins the presidential elections with 63,7% votes. He announced his 2018. candidacy as an independent candidate. 
The member of the opposition, Alexey Navalny, didn't get the "green light" for candidacy from the Electoral commission because the law doesn't allow the candidate who committed a criminal offense. To reminder, Navalny was arrested for leading a national protests and disobeying the law on holding demonstrations. 
It is interesting that either the politicians analyzers or the public's opinion agencies are quite abstained. According to the British "The guardian", the Russian leading independent agency for researching public opinion "Levada Center" is on a list of "foreign agents" since 2016. "Lavada Center" is not a foreign company but it is financed by the foreign countries which allows the Government to put it on such a list. The director of "Levada Center", Lev Gudkov declared that the agency won't publish the results of researches, suspecting that could seem like the agency is involved with the electoral results. But the results of speculations are not that different compare to other agencies (all of them gave Putin more then 60% votes) but there are some disagreements about voter turnout. The analysts claim Putin's victory only if there is a high turnout. Also, they are consulting Putin to form his "political heir" (as Boris Yeltsin did with him) because many fear that after Putin is gone from the political scene, also the Putin's Russia will be gone and that will drastically change not just the picture of Russia but the picture of whole modern Europe and world. 