On March 18, the popular leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, will be reelected to another six-year term as president. This is both a plain statement of fact and a complete falsehood. In American political parlance, this statement can be taken literally, but not seriously. The conundrum is due to the weakness of language and how we allow even the simplest words to be manipulated and distorted. That simple sentence about Putin and the Russian presidential election on March 18 is wrong in every possible way aside from the date and Putin’s name. Before we unpack the many fictions in that statement, let us begin with what will happen, literally, on March 18 in Russia. Many people will go to polling stations and cast votes for different candidates. Putin and the other candidates will be shown on television dropping their paper ballots into boxes and smiling as the cameras flash. Vladimir Putin will receive a healthy majority of the vote, likely around the 64 percent he got in 2012. He will appear on television to thank the Russian people for their continued support and for returning him to the presidency for another six years. The Russian press will report on the world leaders who call to congratulate Putin on his victory, a cohort likely to include the president of the United States of America.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-truth-about-putin/article/2011882
https://www.svoboda.org/a/29096155.html
http://www.finanz.ru/novosti/aktsii/kongress-ssha-potreboval-novykh-sankciy-protiv-rossii-1018641467
https://nv.ua/opinion/oreshkin/putinu-malo-ne-pokazhetsja-2457447.html
https://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/152475
https://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/152509
http://www.ng.ru/politics/2018-03-13/1_7188_navalny.html
http://www.ng.ru/editorial/2018-03-13/2_7188_red.html