The Russian nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) would rather see President Vladimir Putin referred to as a "ruler," Newsweek reported Monday.

"In our country, by historical standards, [president] is generally a new word, and until it takes root completely, you can safely replace it," Newsweek reported the LDPR saying in a statement to the Russian news organization RIA Novosti. "For example, with the phrase 'head of state' or the word 'ruler.' Both are more understandable to the Russian ear."

While the official proposal to Russian Parliament may be recent, the idea of calling Putin a "ruler" is not new.

Reuters reported a similar story in January 2020, where that same party said that Putin should be called "supreme leader" to remain in line with that nation's language, instead of using a "Western" term like president.

"There are ... some very curious proposals among those put forward. For instance, they proposed renaming the position of head of state to 'supreme leader'," Pavel Krasheninnikov, the government commission's co-chair, told the Rossiskaya Gazeta government newspaper at the time.

According to the report, Putin did not have an opinion on the change, which won the support of the lower house of Parliament during that time.

India's New Delhi Television reported Monday that Putin is still neutral on the idea, but party officials said the country "feels embarrassed" using such a "Western" term that has no connection to the traditional Russian language.

"Right now, all this is at the discussion stage," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the news outlet, adding, "President Putin has no view on this."

The head of the regional parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, told NDTV that using Western terms and words are detrimental to the traditions of Russia, and should be stopped.

"The dominance of foreign words is dangerous for our culture and language," he said in the NDTV report. "The time has come to put an end to this."

According to the Newsweek report, the term "president" has only been used in Russia since it was created by the United States at the end of the 18^th century.

According to party officials, a better term, "pravitel," which means "ruler" would be a better replacement.

The news outlet also reported that new, "very nice dictionaries with a certain sense of humor," have been created in Crimea since the 2014 annexation from Ukraine by Russia.

"They contain Russian variants of borrowed words," he said in the Newsweek report, adding that "the dominance of foreign words is dangerous for our culture and language."

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