Russian President Vladimir Putin was named "Person of the Year" in a latest opinion poll, shortly after he was accorded the same title by the U.S. Time magazine on Wednesday.

Some 52 percent of interviewees nominated Putin as Russia's "Person of the Year" and 67 percent graded his performance as excellent. Only 3 percent showed dissatisfaction with his work, the Kommersant paper cited the poll results as saying.

This came shortly after Time magazine named Putin as "Person of the Year" in 2007 for his efforts to bring stability to the country and help restore its world influence.

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev came as a distant second with 4 percent of vote, the same with State Duma Vice Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky. They were followed by First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Having succeeded in enlisting Putin's support, Medvedev has been nominated by the United Russia party as candidate to run in the presidential election slated for March.

As for the outcome of the election, 46 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for Medvedev, 7 percent threw their backing behind Russian Communist Party Chairman Gennady Zyuganov and 6 percent aired support for Zhirinovsky.

The opinion poll surveyed 3,000 residents in 63 regions across the country, with an error margin of plus or minus 2.5 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency December 27, 2007)