MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he found nothing surprising in attempts to sell negative fake news. He stressed that he was working not for the sake of having a nice image abroad.
"As far as fake news is concerned, there is nothing surprising about it as a matter of fact. Such attempts always occurred in the past and they will always take place in the future. That’s what information struggle is all about. Remember the dramatic events in the Caucasus, the struggle against international terrorism, and the way yours truly was presented in the foreign media and, regrettably, in this country, too. Some pictured me with bare fangs. I remember this very well."
"I always proceed from the understanding what I must do and what I believe is crucial to our country, and not for the sake of having a nice image abroad," Putin said.
About the media investigations about his private life Putin said all of them were compilations he was unable to read to the end.
"I leafed through one, because it concerns me, only to find out it was an erratic complication. Everything is messed up in one heap. I did not bother to read it to the very end," Putin said. "It contained several mentions of the president’s ‘son-in-law’, but in the end the same person was referred to as a ‘former son-in-law.’ Yet the reader is forced to think he is a son-in-law after all," Putin said about the rumors found in such probes.