The Russian Premier League (RPL; ; РПЛ), also written as Russian Premier Liga, is the top division professional association football league in Russia. It was established at the end of 2001 as the Russian Football Premier League (RFPL; ; РФПЛ) and was rebranded with its current name in 2018. From 1992 through 2001, the top level of the Russian football league system was the Russian Football Championship (, Chempionat Rossii po Futbolu). There are 16 teams in the competition. As of the 2021/22 season, the league had two Champions League qualifying spots for the league winners and league runners-up, and two spots in the UEFA Conference League were allocated to the third- and fourth-placed teams. However, those have all been suspended due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, along with the national team's participation in international competitions. The last two teams are relegated to the Russian First League at the end of the season, while the 13th and 14th placed teams compete against the National League's 4th and 3rd teams respectively in a two-legged playoff. The Russian Premier League succeeded the Top Division including history and records. The Top Division was run by the Professional Football League of Russia. Since July 2022, the league is currently called Mir Russian Premier League (), also written as Mir Russian Premier Liga (after the Mir payment system), for sponsorship reasons. Since the introduction of the Russian Premier League in 2002, Zenit Saint Petersburg (8 times), CSKA Moscow (6 times), Lokomotiv Moscow (3 times), Rubin Kazan (2 times) and Spartak Moscow (1 time) have won the title. Zenit Saint Petersburg are the current champions winning the competition since 2018 until 2021 consecutively. History After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, starting in 1992, each former Soviet republic organized an independent national championship. In Russia, the six Russian teams who had played in the Soviet Top League in 1991 (CSKA Moscow, Spartak Moscow, Torpedo Moscow, Dynamo Moscow, Spartak Vladikavkaz, and Lokomotiv Moscow) were supplemented with 14 teams from lower divisions to form a 20-team Russian Top Division. The Top Division was divided into two groups to reduce the total number of matches. The number of teams in the Top Division was reduced to 18 in 1993 and 16 in 1994. Since then, the Russian Top Division (and the Premier League since 2002) has consisted of 16 teams, except for a short-lived experiment with having two more