Russian state news agencies have sharply cut their coverage of Putin. He has almost stopped traveling around the country and abroad.
The Russian state news agencies TASS, RIA Novosti, and Interfax have sharply cut their coverage of Vladimir Putin since the start of 2026, according to a count by the independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo.
TASS mentioned Putin 166 times in its Telegram channel in February, down from 387 the year before. In March, the figure was 235, versus 506 in March 2025. In April, 262, versus 429.
RIA Novosti’s numbers tell a similar story. The agency mentioned Putin 129 times in January, compared with 207 in the same month the year before. In February, its Telegram channel published 105 news items mentioning Putin, down from 328 in February 2025. Interfax’s channel published 31 posts about Putin in February, compared with 109 the previous year.
The drop in coverage began immediately after Russian authorities announced a Ukrainian drone strike on Putin’s residence at Valdai. The announcement came in late 2025; Ukraine called the reports a lie, and U.S. President Donald Trump said he did not believe the strike had taken place. A source close to the Kremlin cited by the Russian investigative outlet Proekt believes Putin was deeply worried about his personal security during that period.
As the independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo previously reported, Putin has largely stopped traveling to Russian regions. As of May 21, his last trip to a region outside the areas where his main presidential residences are currently located was a one-day visit to Samara on November 6, 2025. He had also gone an extended period without traveling abroad. After visiting Turkmenistan in December 2025, Putin did not leave Russia until May, when he went to China to meet with Xi Jinping.
In early May, several media outlets — iStories, CNN, and the Financial Times — reported, citing an intelligence report from a European country, that the FSO, which is responsible for the security of Russia’s president, has significantly stepped up measures to protect Vladimir Putin because he fears a possible assassination attempt. The report states that Putin spends several weeks at a time in upgraded bunkers — including one in the Krasnodar region. Neither he nor his family travel to residences outside Moscow or at Valdai any longer.
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FSO
The Federal Protective Service is one of Russia’s security agencies, responsible for protecting federal government bodies — primarily the president. But the FSO’s functions extend beyond that: the service includes the presidential orchestra, a regiment whose personnel stand guard at the Eternal Flame, and a special-purpose garage that manages the vehicle fleet for senior state officials. The FSO also encompasses the special communications service, which inherited the functions of FAPSI (the Federal Agency of Government Communications), a separate agency dissolved in 2003.