Putin hires a TV talking head to speak for his re-election campaign

The press secretary for Vladimir Putin’s re-election campaign will be Andrey Kondrashov, a top presenter on state-run television and the author of a film called “Crimea: Path to the Motherland,” two sources confirmed to the magazine RBC. The film aired in March 2015 and included an interview with President Putin, where he claimed that Russia’s armed seizure of Crimea was legal.

On January 9, other media outlets reported that one of Putin’s campaign managers will be Elena Shmeleva, the head of the “Talent and Success” foundation (which cellist and Panama-Papers star Sergey Roldugin helped create). Shmeleva’s foundation is responsible for the “Sirius” children’s educational center in Sochi, where the organization has inherited much of the country’s Olympic infrastructure.