Alex Ovechkin appears in United Russia campaign ad published by Vedomosti

Alex Ovechkin appeared in a campaign advertisement for the United Russia party published by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti on 15 September 2026, as he prepares for the new hockey season. United Russia is the party that supports Vladimir Putin.

Vedomosti published images showing the Capitals forward alongside pro-Putin figures including Sergey Lavrov, described as Russia’s foreign minister and the leading parliamentary candidate on United Russia’s list, and Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the propaganda network RT. Ovechkin is a long-time supporter of Putin and in 2017 launched Putin Team, a social movement he said would unite "people who are proud of their country and want to make Russia stronger." He also praised the Russian leader’s "trust in and respect for his people, his fairness [and] righteousness, and the fact that he really cares."

The 40-year-old was more cautious about his backing of Putin after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, saying he hoped the war "was going to be over and we are going to be living in a good world", although he still said that Putin was "my president". Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the war that followed Putin’s invasion.

Ovechkin signed a one-year contract extension with the Capitals in July. The Capitals selected him with the first overall pick in the 2004 NHL draft and he has played his entire NHL career with them.

He won the Stanley Cup as the team’s captain in 2018. In 2025 he scored his 895th goal, passing Wayne Gretzky’s all-time scoring record, a mark that had stood since 1999 and one that few believed would ever be broken, making him the NHL’s all-time leading goalscorer.

Having signed a one-year contract extension with the Capitals in July, Ovechkin will enter the upcoming hockey season with the team as he prepares for that campaign.