Viktor, a bus network manager, has a vague idea of who Mr Murayev is, but thinks he is too small-time to be a valuable candidate.

“This is real, Moscow wants their own candidate, but this guy specifically, it’s impossible,” he says. “He’s not a popular guy. No one has heard of him.”

However, the Telegraph did find one man in Kyiv with less harsh words for Mr Murayev: 41-year-old Maxim, who makes a living by selling fountain pens.

“I’ve heard about him, he has a TV channel. He is someone who always speaks his own mind and never hides his opinion,” he says, adding that he doubted a Russian invasion of Ukraine was on the cards.

Mr Murayev, who has condemned the 2014 revolution as a Western-backed coup, has laughed off reports that he is a potential candidate to lead a pro-Russian government in Ukraine.

According to a poll by the Razumkov’s Centre think tank conducted in December 2021, he was ranked seventh among candidates for the 2024 presidential election, with just 6.3 per cent support. He founded his own political movement after breaking away from Ukraine’s most popular pro-Russian party,

Maryna Bardina, an MP from president Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, describes him as “young, ambitious” and “completely pro-Russian” but sorely lacking in mainstream support.

“In the Autumn, he tried to launch a political project – ‘Let’s talk about Ukraine of the future’. He put up boards in some cities. But somehow it did not take off and went unnoticed,” she says.