A Moscow state-running polling company has claimed that Russians have voted Vladimir Putin their politician of the year.
The pro-government Russian Public Opinion Research Center has announced Putin as the winner of the poll every year since it was launched in 2006.
The pollsters claimed the Russian president scored over half (55%) of the vote.
Putin was followed by Mikhail Mishustin, the head of the Russian government, with 21% of the vote, and then foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who polled 13% of the vote.
Putin and his aides are known to keep an iron grip on the media in Russia, meaning citizens are not likely to be exposed to the realities of the war in Ukraine and Putin's decline in popularity with the Russian elite.
Russian TV and newspapers have continually repeated the Kremlin's false claim that the Ukraine invasion is a "special operation" targeting neo-Nazis.
During the Ukraine war, the Russian News Agency (TASS) has made a series of false claims, including that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had fled Kyiv following the invasion – before Zelenskyy used social media to refute the claims.
Watch: Did Putin's army obey his ceasefire order?
Video Not Available
TASS also claimed "Ukrainian nationalists" were responsible for Ukrainian civilians not being able to leave the city of Mariupol while it was heavily bombed by the Russian military.
Putin has recently sacked another general after just three months in the job, following a series of Russian losses.
...
WASHINGTON, D.C., DC, UNITED STATES, May 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Brown, LLC, a nationally recognized whistleblower law firm and leader in False Claims Act (FCA) litigation, today announced t...