Russia: Strategic developments in Russia
Putin massively awarded employees of "First Channel" for the third time in a month Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Tuesday awarding state honors to officials, employees of state companies, and media. Among those awarded were over 50 employees of "First Channel". In total, since the beginning of September, more than a hundred employees of the channel have already received state awards. Details. Employees of "First Channel", according to the decree, received orders "For Merit to the Fatherland", Friendship and Honor, as well as medals of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland". ▪️The reason for the award in the document is named as "merits in the field of mass media and many years of conscientious work." The awardees included managers, employees of directorates, directors and editors, as well as broadcast presenters. ▪️Among the awardees is political scientist Dmitry Simes, who, as "Proekt" wrote, received tens of millions of rubles a year from "First Channel", as well as the host of direct lines with Putin, Ekaterina Berezovskaya. ▪️In total, since the beginning of September, 106 employees of "First Channel" have received state awards. Of these, another 28 were awarded by Putin's decree of September 3, and another 27 by the decree of September 18. How Putin awarded "First Channel" before. In November 2025, Putin massively awarded 103 employees of "First Channel": presidential commendations were announced to presenters and managers, including Roza Syabitova, Valdis Pelsh, and Alexander Gordon. ▪️A massive award ceremony for propagandists from various TV channels for covering the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was also held. At that time, about 60 employees of "First Channel" received awards under a closed presidential decree. In total, 300 employees of pro-Kremlin media received state awards under the same decree - in addition to "First Channel", employees of VGTRK, NTV, Russia Today, and the Life News holding received them. ▪️In August 2018, Putin signed an order to award a presidential certificate of honor to seven employees of "First", and he announced commendations to another 18. ▪️In other cases, individual channel employees received awards. In April 2025, Putin posthumously awarded the Order of Courage to "First Channel" correspondent Anna Prokofieva, who was injured by a mine in the Belgorod region. In 2022, correspondent Irina Sokirko (Kuksenkova) received the same order after being wounded in Mariupol. ▪️Putin has repeatedly awarded the channel's general director Konstantin Ernst - in 2014 (for hosting the Olympics in Sochi), in 2021 and 2026. In 2022, Ernst was awarded the state prize in literature and art for the film "The Challenge", filmed in space. ▪️Recent decrees by Putin on mass awards to employees of other federal TV channels have not been found by "Agentstvo".
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