8 Hilariously Insane Examples of Vladimir Putin Propaganda
When America wanted an action hero as President, they filmed Air Force One. According to the photographs coming out of Russia, the media there just had to follow around the real thing.
Propaganda is like nuclear material: It can completely change the political landscape, it goes scarily out of control when you have too much of it, and Russia has way more than too much of it. When America wanted an action hero as president, they filmed Air Force One. According to the stories coming out of Russia, such effort is unnecessary when your country is run by Vladimir Putin. This is a man who can't even go diving without finding ancient Greek amphorae, and is so photogenic they've been magically scrubbed clean before he reaches the surface. The fact that government agents clearly planted the relics only makes it more impressive. He has operatives who secretly SCUBA to plant artifacts in the Black Sea, and instead of sending them to Tomb Raid or kill James Bond, he told them, "Your mission is to turn the rest of my life into a Make-a-Wish foundation highlight video."
We've seen his incredible antics beforeA Thousand Breasts For Putin
Here a fat sumo really would be a combo breaker. Jesus might have wasted his touches on leprosy, but Putin knows what's important.
Super Putin
The Man of Steel dreams of a Man Who's Real. The only difference with regular Russian news stories was Super Putin
This is pretty much Friday night at the Cracked offices When American presidents appear in comics, it's just to hang out with "real" heroes. Russians realize how insulting that is.
Obama saving a blue-collar worker This comic makes Putin look even better than Batman. Bruce Wayne was just born into billions of dollars he could spend on training and looking awesome -- Putin had to join the KGB and take over an entire country first. Though he does now have just as many people writing, filming and imagining fictional scenes to make him look cool. The future plot of the comic is decided by democracy, safe in the knowledge that no one can effectively vote against Putin. Just like in the real Russia.
Putin Vodkas. Plural.
American presidents get in trouble when women put them in their mouths. "Putinka" is actually an affectionate diminutive form of Putin's name, and you'd need at least a bottle of high-end vodka in you before you tried to call Putin "babbums." It's no novelty product either -- it has won multiple
Available in "Skull," "Bear!" and "So strong you can't look directly at the liquid" versions. Even Medvedev has his own vodka, which (predictably) isn't nearly as popular
"He Must Be Like Putin"
This is how much Putin they'll settle for.
Like Putin Video Game
Like Putin is the first flash game to feature a politician as anything but a very badly-mocked (and often literal) target. Putin literally leaps out of the headlines to fix things he doesn't like, making this the first video game character less powerful than the real thing, who gets to set headlines before they're printed. Usually by saving reporters from a charging tiger.
In the game he only beats up terrorists with his bare hands. He rushes through the Web beating up terrorists, driving a Lada, winning the Olympics and collecting money to give to poor old Russian ladies. While saving the world and destroying lethal threats, he's strolling around in a business suit, because sprinting and power armor are for pansies like Master Chief.
The Putin Army
She's about to slap him and/because he's not even looking at her. This triggered the best and sexiest escalation of all time with a counter-group of "Medvedev girls" dressing up as schoolgirls. It's especially gratuitous because Putin and Medvedev exhibit more obvious teamwork than the Constructicons. Medvedev just suggested Putin as the presidential candidate for 2012, so with the upcoming increase of presidential terms to six years they're exactly half-way through double-teaming the very concept of Russian democracy for 24 years. You get the impression they started this girl army contest just because they were two guys and realized they could.
Asked To Award the MMA European Championship (Instead of Van Damme)
Notice how Van Damme is thrilled to hang out while Putin wears the tolerating grin of a tired father. The UFC fighters want to hang out with him too, because even people who take concussions for a living know that choke holds don't work against polonium-210 injections. Fyodor Yemelyanko is widely regarded as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time -- he's won more martial arts awards than China, was undefeated for almost a decade and he says that earned Putin's notice.
The Convent of St. Putin
"Blessed sisters, I imagine that it is THIS BIG!" It's also the worst possible publicity for Putin. His PR staff already spends 23 hours a day assuring people he's not turning the entire country into a cult, so an actual cult is bad news. Luckily, all of "Mother Fotinya's" followers are extremely old, and one of the religion's rules forbids modern medicine, so it shouldn't be a problem for long. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
