Putin doesn’t have online accounts & thinks there are better uses of his time than posting on Twitter or Facebook, Kremlin says

Russia's President Vladimir Putin isn't active online because he doesn't have enough time to post, scroll and click, the Kremlin has revealed, saying he has rejected the idea of having an aide manage public profiles on his behalf.

Speaking to journalists at the Eastern Economic Forum on Thursday, Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, revealed the Russian leader thinks there are better uses of his time than setting up an account on Twitter or Facebook. "Putin himself does not use social networks," the Kremlin official said, chalking the decision up to pressures on his diary.

However, there is apparently no question about deputizing the job to an adviser. "He does not want anyone to do it for him," Peskov said. "He considers it wrong."

In 2017, taking questions at a meeting with especially-gifted children, Putin said there was no slot in his day for social media. "My working days are so busy and finish so late at night that I am not in the mood for Instagram," he said. "All I think about is to get to bed to sleep," the president added.

However, he warned that there are numerous satirical and fake accounts set up in his name. "I have nothing to do with any of them. Just beware of that. So, everything that is written on my behalf is not me," Putin said.

A prolific social media user, Former President Donald Trump is estimated to have tweeted more than 25,000 times during his presidency, before tech giants, including Twitter, banned him from the service in the wake of protesters storming Washington's Capitol building in January.

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