The Kremlin says the BBC never requested permission to use the image of Vladimir Putin in a new program featuring a 3D animation of the Russian president.
“No, [the authors of the program] have not asked us for this," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by TASS on May 23.
The BBC has described Tonight With Vladimir Putin as a “television first” with technology making it possible for a “3D digital cartoon of Putin to walk around and sit behind the desk, interviewing real human guests in front of a studio audience, all in real time.”
The show has yet to air, but two 12-minute pilots have been recorded.
In a short preview for the show, the Putin character appears outside Buckingham Palace talking about the “forbidden delights of the West,” including blue jeans and rock and roll.
Relations between Moscow and London have worsened since the poisoning last year of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury.
