Russian President Vladimir Putin cast his ballot in the 9th State Duma elections using a Dell computer running an unactivated copy of Windows, according to video of the online vote that circulated on social media this week. The clip shows an activation reminder watermark on the screen, indicating the operating system was never licensed. A legal copy of Windows 11 starts at $139.
The video drew attention after the nonprofit Central European news aggregator Visegrad24 shared it. A magnified section of the footage shows a screen effect that closely resembles the Windows activation watermark. Another overlay on the display is clearly from a different computer and carries a 2018 date. Established Russian outlets including Komsomolskaya Pravda also published recordings in which the watermark appears on Putin's screen at the end of the voting clip.
Russian state news agency TASS said the vote was held to elect deputies to the 9th State Duma. It noted that Putin has preferred to cast his ballot remotely in recent years. TASS also reported that residents of the recently incorporated Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, along with the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, will take part in legislative elections for the lower house of the Russian parliament for the first time.
The social media discussion around the Kremlin clip raised several observations. Putin's remark that a voter cannot go wrong drew comment given the absence of uncertainty about outcomes in Russian elections. The ruling pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, is backed by Putin.
The president also appeared to be voting on a foreign-brand Dell machine, even though Russian law requires officials to use computers meeting certain localization standards. That requirement suggests the machine may have been configured specifically for the publicity clip, which would also explain why an unactivated, unregistered copy of Windows was running on it. Such an installation would likely be a fresh copy of Microsoft's operating system kept separate from any government network.
As for Putin's computer skills, his difficulty with the online voting forms appeared to stem from vision problems rather than hand-eye coordination. There were lengthy pauses as the 73-year-old squinted, leaned toward the screen and clicked the mouse.
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