‘Putin’s Team’ isn’t the PR project you thought it was, says Vedomosti

The Kremlin is using “Putin’s Team,” a movement supposedly launched by hockey player Alexander Ovechkin, as a vehicle to unite various Russian celebrities in favor of Vladimir Putin’s re-election, anonymous government sources told the newspaper Vedomosti. Sources claim the movement was actually invented by the company “IMA-Consulting” and only subsequently won the approval of the president’s political strategists.

Ovechkin’s spokesperson refused to respond to the allegations, and the general director of IMA-Consulting called the report “untrue,” denying that his agency created “Putin’s Team.”

In 2007, Putin’s staff used another social movement, “For Putin,” to unite celebrities who supported him. One of the organizers of that movement, Pavel Astakhov, was later appointed as Russia’s children’s rights commissioner.

Alexander Ovechkin announced the creation of Putin’s Team on November 3, claiming that he frequently encounters the phrase “Putin’s team” in the Western media and wanted to make it official.