MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he stilldoes not have a smartphone, after revealing last year that he has nointerest in joining any social media networks.
At a meeting with scientists and academics, Putin made the admission inresponse to a speech by Mikhail Kovalchuk, head of the Kurchatov nuclearresearch institute, while travelling in Siberia ahead of March 18 polls inwhich he is seeking a fourth term in the Kremlin.
“You said that everyone has smartphones. But I don’t have a smartphone,”Putin said, to laughter in the audience. He responded to a comment fromKovalchuk that “everyone has a smartphone in their pocket.”
The 65-year-old grandfather has previously admitted to technologicalcluelessness — saying in 2005 that he did not have a mobile phone at all —and voiced fears over content available online.
Last year while meeting schoolchildren, Putin told them he barely uses theinternet, after being asked if he looked at Instagram or other socialnetworks in his spare moments.
“I personally practically don’t use this,” Putin said of the internet,adding that members of his staff do get online.
“My hard working day finishes so late, I’m not up to Instagram,” he said.
Putin contrasts with 52-year-old Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who isoften seen with an iPhone and other gadgets and puts up his own snapshotson his official Instagram page.
In past years, Putin has claimed that the internet is a “special project ofthe CIA” and “half pornography”.
Since his return to the Kremlin in 2012, Putin has overseen a harshcrackdown on internet freedoms, bringing in laws to allow sites withallegedly extremist content to be blocked without a court order andprosecuting a growing number of people for posting online.
Russia sentenced 43 people to jail over online posts last year, a rightsgroup said Monday.
The internet remains one of the country’s few forums for political debateand Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has won a youth following with live videoblogs and YouTube videos. – Agencies