Official Russian state photo shows Vladimir Putin casting online vote using an unlicensed version of Windows 10 — and to make things worse, it's on an American Dell PC
Russian President Vladimir Putin was filmed casting an online vote for the 2026 parliamentary elections using a US-made Dell computer. The footage revealed that the device was running an unlicensed version of Windows 10, which sparked widespread mockery and memes. The incident raised questions about the suitability of the hardware for state voting infrastructure and the authenticity of the promotional stunt.
- ▪Vladimir Putin used a Dell PC running an unactivated version of Windows 10 to cast an online vote for the State Duma elections.
- ▪The online voting system for the Russian parliamentary elections was opened to the public for the first time on September 18, 2026.
- ▪The press call intended to demonstrate the ease of voting instead generated significant public ridicule and viral memes.
- ▪Observers noted that the use of American hardware and unlicensed software contradicts the narrative of Russian technological self-sufficiency.
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| Original publisher | TechRadar |
| Canonical URL | https://www.techradar.com/pro/official-russian-state-photo-shows-vladimir-putin-casting-online-vote-using-an-unlicensed-version-of-windows-10-and-to-make-things-worse-its-on-an-american-dell-pc |
| Publication time | Wed, 23 Sep 2026 00:20:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-23T00:24:30.061Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-23T00:24:30.061Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | E2XPeuLHwXqM · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Pro Official Russian state photo shows Vladimir Putin casting online vote using an unlicensed version of Windows 10 — and to make things worse, it's on an American Dell PC News By Christian Cawley Published 23 September 2026 Vote legal software licenses, comrade When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Getty Images/ALEXANDER KAZAKOV / Contributor) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A Vladimir Putin press call showed the Russian president casting an online vote for the country’s parliamentary electionsThe short clip has revealed that not only is…
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