Donald Trump has replaced Russian President Vladimir Putin as the most mentioned person in the Russian media in January, according to data reported on Thursday. This marks the first time that anyone has outperformed Putin since he was re-elected in early 2012.
Last month, Trump received 202,000 mentions in Russian print and online media, compared with 147,000 mentions of Putin, according to Russian news agency Interfax, which runs a news-monitoring system.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama came in third with 61,200 mentions.
For nearly five years, since the March 2012 presidential election, which brought Putin back to the Kremlin after a four-year stint as the country’s prime minister, he was the most mentioned person in the country’s media.
Russian research company Medialogia also said Trump drew the most media mentions in January. Medialogia, which has a more sophisticated system for media monitoring, put Trump’s rating at 1.80 million, against Putin’s 1.15 million. The index that figure reflects the number of mentions and the proportion of positive to negative mentions.
Since Trump was elected U.S. president in November, Russian media have been giving him favorable treatment as opposed to former President Obama.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin played down the data. “We are not striving for leadership,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian daily Vedomosti. “The agenda can change from month to month.”
