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The caption at the end of both campaign ads reads: 'Putin. First time only for love'. Screengrab via YouTube.
Russia

Watch: Vladimir Putin adverts attempt to woo 'virgin voters'

Two viral videos are causing a stir ahead of the Russian presidential election on Sunday.

TONGUE-IN-CHEEK videos from supporters of Vladimir Putin have been attracting plenty of attention as they liken first-time voters in this weekend’s presidential election to virgins who should choose the Russian premier.

Putin is on course to return for a third term as president on 4 March having spent the last four years on the sidelines as prime minister since he was succeeded by close allay Dmitry Medvedev in the Kremlin.

The former KGB official has done much to woo first time voters although he is not directly affiliated to these two viral videos. The two ads are reportedly the work of the advertising group Aldus Advon with a separate website called The First Time set up to carry the ads.

The two ads feature young women who discuss their “first time” with a doctor and a tarot card reader.

But when referring to their “first time” they actually mean voting and in each case the  young women are implored to vote Putin who has built up a sizeable personality cult based primarily on his image as Russia’s strongman leader, restoring the country to former glories.

According to Agence France Presse in the first video, the doctor tells the woman: “The main thing is to be sure it’s safe. Especially the first time”.

Then the camera pans away to an image of Putin and the woman is later seen on her way to a polling station, presumably to put a tick next to Putin’s name:

YouTube: perviirazpolubvi

While in the second video, as TNT explains, a similarly coy Russian girl, possibly the same one as in the first video, has her future read by a Mystic Meg-type character who says: “Let’s find out, cutie, who is destined for you.”

Sure enough a tarot card is flipped to reveal Putin himself:

YouTube: perviirazpolubvi

BBC News reports that in response, anti-Putin campaigners, many of whom feel he was behind the alleged rigging of parliamentary elections last year, have released a video which spoofs the two pro-Putin ads.

In the video the woman, socialite and opposition campaigner Ksenia Sobchak, appears before the camera and lists the reasons to vote for Putin before the camera pulls away to show her tied to a chair. She is then gagged by thugs and bundled away.

Russian secret service ‘foils plot to assassinate Putin’

In pictures: Thousands turn out for anti-Putin protest in Moscow

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