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Kremlin blasts Time magazine’s 'Russophobic' choice of Zelensky as 'Person of the Year'

Also, the American news magazine named the Ukrainian leader the "spirit of Ukraine"

© Vladimir Gerdo/TASS

MOSCOW, December 8. /TASS/. Time magazine’s decision to pick Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as the ‘2022 Person of the Year’ fits into Europe’s overall Russophobic sentiments, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"Time magazine employs its own criteria, which we can go on with or disagree, and it is their own editorial policy," the spokesman said.

"However, in this case the magazine’s editorial directives remain within the boundaries of the pan-European mainstream, which is totally short-sighted, anti-Russian and vehemently Russophobic," Peskov told journalists.

Time, the American news magazine, has named Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky ‘Person of the Year’ 2022 and the ‘spirit of Ukraine.’

Time magazine has chosen Person of the Year annually since 1927. In 2021, billionaire Elon Musk was awarded this title by the renowned publication.

This title was first awarded in 1927 to the US pilot Charles Lindbergh, who performed a solo flight across the Atlantic for the first time in history. More than 70 times, the person of the year title went to political and public figures, among them Mahatma Gandhi (1930), Winston Churchill (1940, 1949), Elizabeth II (1952), Charles de Gaulle (1958), Martin Luther King (1963), Henry Kissinger (1972), Deng Xiaoping (1978, 1985), Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), Lech Walesa (1981), Pope John Paul II (1994), Pope Francis (2013), and Angela Merkel (2015).

The title was received by all US presidents, starting from Franklin Roosevelt, with the exception of Gerald Ford. Roosevelt was the only one to be awarded this title thrice: in 1932, 1934 and 1941. Among the holders of this title were five leaders of the USSR and Russia: Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942), Nikita Khrushchev (1957), Yury Andropov (1983, alongside US President Ronald Reagan), Mikhail Gorbachev (1987, 1989) and Vladimir Putin (2007).

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