Russian President Vladimir Putin has thanked RT staff for “standing up for the truth,” which he described as the network’s “secret strategic and high-precision… weapon.” In an address to around 1,000 of the network’s personnel at the Bolshoi Theatre on Friday, alongside RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, Putin congratulated the broadcaster on its 20th anniversary, noting that it has grown from a mere concept into a “global trend known around the world” He praised Simonyan, whose husband Tigran Keosayan passed away after months in a coma, for her “courage and endurance.”