Putin comes top of TIME readers' poll

The TIME 100 annual survey of its readers voted Vlad Putin as the most influential world figure in 2015. He beat other world leaders and celebrities, including Pope Francis and American President Barack Obama. Obama’s tally of votes trailed that for Putin, scoring only about a fifth of those won by his Russian counterpart:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41557.htm

But how can the runaway popularity for Putin be explained? After all, according to Washington and its allies, both governmental and in the Western mass media, Vladimir Putin is "evil incarnate". Washington and Western think tanks will almost certainly try to spin this by suggesting that the prestigious American publication, has been hacked by Russian state cyber-terrorists or infiltrated by Kremlin trolls.

Either millions of people that account for two-thirds of TIME's readership based in North America and Britain voted Vladimir Putin as the person of the year, or Russian trolls and cyber-terrorists have indeed taken over the magazine. The latter seems highly unlikely bordering on delusional. The truth is almost certainly more simple. Putin is extremely popular.

The fact that his triumph has been largely whitewashed from the mainstream media, seems to me to be indicative of their refusal to accept Putin's popularity among large swaths of the population in the West. Moreover, this doesn't sit well with Washington.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to hold a press conference in Moscow on April 16 in order to answer questions from across Russia. Those willing to ask Putin a question will have an opportunity to contact the president via Facebook and local social networks, as well as by SMS, MMS and telephone.

Putin's ‘direct lines’ have become a well-established tradition throughout the years of his presidency since 2001. The last hotline in 2014 lasted 3 hours 55 minutes and was focused on the Ukrainian crisis.
[video=youtube_share;envLkVsIzQs]http://youtu.be/envLkVsIzQs[/video]
No one president in all world can repeat such conversation with the people.
They are afraid?

PS: hallo democratic countries

 

A person can argue all day on whether Putin has been an effective leader for the Russian people but nobody can argue that he is not one of the most powerful figures to come along in a very long time. Time and again he has shown up other world leaders with his brilliant political maneuvering, he has spread the influence of Russia without having to start a major war, and he has, or others have, done one of the best marketing jobs on his rugged toughness both in and out of the political arena.

He definitely deserves Man of the Year.

Hitler got it also if I remember correctly......so did a computer at one point.

Unlike the stupid Nobel Commission who hands out awards based purely on political reasons, Time awards them for people that actually deserve it regardless of their politics.

 

confusing influence with popularity suggests you need to spend some time with a dictionary.

 

Being hailed by TIME on the cover page is not necessarily flattering. Nevertheless, do some like it or not, Putin has a moral superiority over Obama and a number of European leaders. He is honest, straightforward, serving Russian nation and he is a friend of Christians. Right now, ISIL is eradicating Christianity in the Middle East, but America, being a Christian nation, does not do much to save Christians. American evangelicals are preoccupied with Israel, not with Christianity in the Middle East. This is one reason why 'death on America' slogan is so widely spread and American policy actually helps ISIL. Putin could be more efficient, because he stands to the principle.

 

So was Hitler.

Not that the two are comparable, just to show it means nothing and sometimes even worse than nothing.

 

I read an article by an American who worked for USAID before Vladimir Putin became president. She said he was known for his integrity at a time when Russia was a Kleptocracy. She said she was shocked when he didn't ask her for any favors, and because of that, many preferred going to him rather than to another bureaucrat. She said he was a very simply unassuming man, and when he was chosen for president, she felt it was a mistake and that there was no way he would be able to handle the powerful governors and oligarchs...yet he did. Integrity and virtue won out this time. It doesn't usually.

 

Those question and answer sessions are amazing. Putin will answer questions for hours on the most diverse subjects and is able to go into details on just about everything. What a brain...but then again he's a true leader with a concern towards his country, not a politician seeking self glorification. Which kind of reminds me of a video I saw of Obama and how ridiculous he looked when a woman in an audience asked him a simple question and he didn't know how to answer it.

 

As much as it kills me to say it, Putin is a much better LEADER (by definition- liberals, please don't take this as an indication that I support Putin, I am very much against him) than Obama.

If Putin is proud to win the same non-political award that Adolph Hitler won, then congratulations. However, that does not make what he's doing right. As it shows with Hitler.

 

KGB agents, known for their "integrity"?

lol!!!!

 

What is going now , to any who it is constant (the whole year) watches closely events in near Ukrainian conflict it is visible - the West at the head of the USA, like a Napoleon or Hitler wants to attack Russia ... The USA started lies promotion against Russia for several months before the Ukrainian crisis. Anyway the USA helped to make bloody revolution in Ukraine as barbarians! But not democratic way...

 

That's an interesting opinion you have

 

You don't agree - barbarians and modern as*sho*le are identical?
[video=youtube_share;FJIHZ76SnNk]http://youtu.be/FJIHZ76SnNk[/video]

 

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By the way - being on the cover of Time as a most influential person isn't usually a big pat on the back ...

 

What it does show is the failure of the Western propagandists to diminish him in the eyes of the world.

 

look start now - it is translate in English too

host of the program


studio


The most popular and clever president V. Putin

 

Being better than Obama is not something to brag about. The damage he cause to the US and the world will be studied for centuries to come.

 

was anyone and everyone allowed to vote?

how was the voting done?

did they make sure that all voters were American?

 

This year he wins 1st place, last year he won 28th place.

what changed?

 

hmmm, it appears its not an actual scientific poll, but folks simply vote at will.

no doubt Kremlin Imperialist trolls used proxy servers in the USA to make believe they were Americans and voted for their Fuhrer, Putin.

Time said the majority of votes (57.4 per cent) came from within the US. The rest were spread relatively broadly around the world, with Canada and the UK second and third for voters with 5.54 per cent and 4/55 per cent respectively.

Keep in mind that there were 100 people in the "poll" and they all got some votes.

If however there were only ten people, Putin may not have won.

 

Putin is winning and Russia is winning. Ukraine is a disaster created by EU and USA. There is no chance to win for them.

 

Russia isn't winning, unless you consider extreme alcoholism, illiteracy, economy in recession, collapsed currency value, massive poverty, massive inequality, to be "winning".

 

I second all of this, he has been very impressive to watch and anyone who is a fan of history has to see many typical aspects to that of other powerful figures in history.

A lot of it I think has to do with the strength of the Russian people and how willing they are to endure. Putin has learned the weaknesses of his country as well as the strengths of his people and is quite skillfully maneuvering between the two.

Lastly, it is very interesting to see a figure like him in a world where The West thought such a person couldn't exist. It seems like Merkel is the only person with the strength and skill to play the game back at him. So far everyone else seems very cowed,

 

Can you really tell yet?

I think Russia basically invaded a country for the resources it could provide, including people, geography, economic and natural resources and not to mention world stage relevance. I believe he is involving Russian troops to fight in Ukraine and covering it up very well. I also believe he helped to cover the fact that Russian backed fighters mistakenly shot down the Malaysian airliner.

All that said, lets see what Putin actually gained and lost because of all this hullabaloo, since he has effectively BS'd the world into overall not really caring.

He was able to gain all of those things that came with Crimea mentioned above, natural resources, economic base to tax, mfg base, population increase, and like it or not, world wide notoriety and in many cases gained the respect of many countries.

He lost the respect of many counties and took a huge hit to his economy.

However the Russian people are so willing to endure pain, that the long list posted above makes them completely ignore the bottom list. No matter how big a deal we place on the relevance of "took a huge hit to his economy" the Russian people simply don't.

Has he won? If he can bring his economy to, in my opinion, 80-90% of what it was pre-Ukraine within the next few yeas ..... yes, then I think he has won

We will see.

 

so tens of thousands of paid trolls in Russia make believe they live in the USA by using American proxy-servers, and all vote for Putin?

big deal.