Putin drops cryptic hint on 2024 exit in press marathon

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday dropped a cryptic hint seen by some as a sign he may not serve another term while also staunchly defending his Kremlin policies in a marathon news conference.

Clocking in at four hours and twenty-five minutes, the question-and-answer session was one of the longest ever held by Putin in a format that has become an annual end-of-year tradition for the Russian leader.

Putin -- who will shortly mark two decades since Boris Yeltsin dramatically handed him the presidency at the start of 2000 -- faced the media with Russia still isolated internationally and speculation growing about his own plans when his mandate ends in 2024.

Many of the questions posed by some 1,800 reporters accredited for the event focused on bread-and-butter regional issues in a country that stretches from the Baltic to the Pacific, which Putin traditionally responded to with a stream of statistics.

But the most talked about moment came when Putin indicated he was in favour of removing the word "successive" from a clause in the constitution that says the Russian president should only serve two successive terms.

Were this to be implemented, Putin could not when his current term runs out in 2024 repeat the trick of 2008 where he temporarily handed the Kremlin to his ally Dmitry Medvedev to get round the two mandate rule.

"Your humble servant served two successive terms and then stepped down and had the constitutional right to return to the post of president," he said.

"But some of our political scientists and activists do not like this and maybe this could be removed, possibly." Margarita Simonyan, the well-connected editor-in-chief of Russian broadcaster RT, said on Twitter: "If anyone had any doubts about whether the chief will seek another presidential term, he will not." -