Forget Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump is Russian media's most talked about public figure

After only a month into 2017, Donald Trump has already become one of the most talked about public figures around the world this year. Now, new data has revealed that the US president is making a major impression in Russia, too.

According to news agency Interfax's news analytics database Scan, Trump has been mentioned more often by Russian media than the country's own president, Vladimir Putin. The US president was referred to a total of 202,000 times in January alone, while Putin garnered only 147,000 mentions. This is the first time since 2011 that the Russian leader has been denied this top spot.

The Scan data was complied after analysing 240,000 daily articles from national and local press, TV and radio broadcasts and online sites.

Medialogia, a Russian research company concurred with Interfax's findings but settled their numbers at 1.80 million mentions of Trump and 1.15 million of Putin.

The US leader was not the only American to feature among the top ten figures in the list. Former President Barack Obama came in third with 61,155 mentions, and Hillary Clinton took seventh place, with 23,843 mentions.

Unlike in America, where Trump is the target for mostly negative criticism by the media, in Russia he has earned a more favourable impression thanks to his comments about Putin being a "strong leader" and stating that he was ready to lift the sanctions the Obama administration put against the country.

Kremlin did not seem too concerned about the numbers though and spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that "agenda can change from month to month". "We are not striving for leadership," he said, according to Russian daily Vedomosti.