Alex Ovechkin appears in United Russia campaign ad ahead of vote
Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin has appeared in a campaign video for United Russia, the ruling party that supports Vladimir Putin. The video surfaced days before Russia's parliamentary election on September 18-20, according to The Guardian.
United Russia built the series around the leaders of its list for the State Duma elections, the vote for Russia's lower house of parliament. The party used the slogan "When we are united, we are invincible" for the pre-election videos, Vedomosti reported. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is No. 1 on that list.
Ovechkin was listed among Lavrov's circle of like-minded supporters. Images published by Vedomosti showed the hockey star alongside Lavrov and Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT.
That group also included Vyacheslav Nikonov, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, actor Vladimir Mashkov and singer Tatiana Kurtukova. Ovechkin's appearance with Lavrov came just ahead of the September parliamentary vote, Meduza noted.
This is not new ground for him. In 2017, Ovechkin launched Putin Team, a social movement in support of Putin. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he said Putin was "my president."
On the ice, his Washington resume runs long. The Capitals took him with the first overall pick in the 2004 NHL draft. He never left. He has played his entire NHL career in Washington and captained the club to the Stanley Cup in 2018.
In 2025, he scored his 895th goal to pass Wayne Gretzky for the NHL's all-time lead. He then signed a one-year contract extension to stay with the Capitals. Russia is scheduled to vote from September 18-20, Reuters reported.
For fans, this means two stories run side by side. One is hockey: the league's top goal scorer back for another year in Washington. The other is politics: a Russian star lending his name to the country's ruling party days before voting.
