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Putin was a new modern “strongman,” Peskov said, an archetype who was spawning imitations across the globe. “People around the world are tired of leaders that are all similar to each other. There’s a demand in the world for special sovereign leaders, for decisive ones who do not fit into general frameworks,” the Kremlin spokesman explained. “Putin’s Russia was the starting point.” Others that fit the mold included Viktor Orban in Hungary, Xi Jinping in China, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an in Turkey.
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