"Well, this is not true," Putin said when asked about being described as a Russian imperial-era ruler.
"Maybe someone else can be called a tsar. But in my case, I don't reign, I work every day," he told the state-run TASS news agency.
The interview aired on Thursday as part of a series rolled out by TASS this month to mark 20 years since the 67-year-old Putin took the helm of Russian politics. It was not clear when the segments were recorded, but the series began airing before Putin said this month that he wants an opportunity to run for president again, as part of his constitutional reforms.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2020