Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that some of his most famous media adventures with wildlife have been carefully staged, but has said they were worthwhile because they drew the public’s attention to nature conservation.
His macho appearances with everything from tigers to whales have been a staple of Russian state television for years and drawn mockery from critics who have likened them to Soviet-style propaganda.
Although Putin’s spokesman has previously revealed that at least one of the stunts was a set-up, Putin until now had appeared to play along with the exercises.
However, in a meeting with a Kremlin critic Putin admitted he had taken part in staged stunts that sometimes had been over the top.
“Of course, there are excesses. And I am enraged about it,” he told Masha Gessen, a journalist and Putin critic whom he had invited for a meeting in the Kremlin after she was fired from editing a travel magazine for refusing to send reporters to cover one of Putin’s stunts.
Gessen wrote an account of her meeting with the president in Bolshoi Gorod magazine.
“But I thought up these tigers myself. Twenty other countries where tigers live also started taking care of them,” she quoted Putin as saying, referring to a stunt where he was shown shooting a tiger with a tranquilizer gun.
“Everything I do in this area [wildlife conservation] should have nothing to do with politics. But for a man in my position it is very difficult,” Putin said.
Putin also admitted that a stunt last year where he dove to the bottom of the Black Sea to apparently discover ancient amphorae was also not what it seemed.
“Why did I dive? Not to show my gills off, but to make sure people learn history. Of course it was a set-up,” Gessen quoted Putin as saying.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Gessen had provided “a correct account of the meeting except for some insignificant details.”
Putin’s summons to Gessen appeared to be an attempt to mediate her dispute with her former employer. She said that Putin, flanked by the magazine’s owner, asked her whether she wanted to have her job back or whether she was comfortable being “a persecuted journalist.” Gessen wrote that she had refused Putin’s offer.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese