A hamburger is not the sort of thing you would expect to spark an international disagreement.
However, the apparent creation of a special birthday burger for the Russian President Vladimir Putin has dragged a New York restaurant into an argument over what critics say is fake news from the Kremlin.
Russian state media over the weekend reported that Lucy’s Cantina Royale had produced a special spicy burger in honor of Putin’s 65th birthday on Saturday.
It was a shining example of how Putin is adored around the world, said Channel One, the Kremlin’s flagship TV channel.
“It’s not only foreign leaders that are wishing Russia’s president a happy birthday, but ordinary citizens too, and, what is more, in extremely original ways,” a presenter said.
A waitress at Lucy’s, a Mexican restaurant near Penn Station in New York, told Russian state media that the five-patty burger, served with fries, sauce and salad, weighed exactly 1,952g, a reference to the year Putin was born in what was then Leningrad, now St Petersburg.
“We believe that Vladimir Vladimirovich is an outstanding politician and a historical figure, and so we decided to devote one day a year to him,” said a barmaid, identified variously as Tamara, Tatiana or Darya by various Russian media outlets.
The video was produced by Ruptly, a company owned by RT, the Kremlin-backed TV channel.
Tass, a state-run news agency, cited a manager at Lucy’s, named Ted Bryant, as saying Putin was the only world leader whose birthday the restaurant celebrated with a special burger.
However, there was a problem: The story was fake.
When Alexey Kovalev, a Russian journalist whose Web site exposes Kremlin propaganda, called the restaurant, a Lucy’s barman told him: “This has nothing to do with us.”
A pro-Kremlin Twitter user then posted a recording of a telephone call to Lucy’s, in which a barmaid confirmed the Putin burger promotion.
When Kovalev called back, the same woman said the burger had been on sale in the morning and the man who had told him the Russian state media story was untrue was a “trainee.”
She then hung up.
However, there was no mention of the purported Putin burger promotion on the restaurant’s Web site and no sign of it on photographs posted to Lucy’s Instagram on Saturday, the Russian president’s birthday.
“Our restaurant has never celebrated Vladimir Putin’s birthday in any way, shape or form and has never offered a Putin burger,” Sean Ryan, a spokesman for Lucy’s Cantina Royale, told the Guardian in e-mailed comments. “Lucy’s completely disavows the statements made in the video, which are false.”
As for the barmaid featured in the state media report — apparently the same woman to whom Kovalev spoke — Ryan said: “She in fact does work for us and she lied about filming a project for school.”
Ryan said he was speaking to the restaurant’s attorneys about the incident.
Critics say the incident is a perfect example of how Kremlin-sponsored fake news operates.
“This whole ridiculous story betrays the deep insecurity of both Putin, his loyal media and supporters,” said Kovalev, who runs the Web site the Noodle Remover.
“They crave Western attention and recognition so much that they’re prepared to resort to outright fakery to show that ordinary people in the West are in awe of the great Vladimir Vladimirovich. It’s just sad, really,” he said.
“We have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this story,” RT’s head of communications Anna Belkina said.
She cited the Tass quote from the “Lucy bar manager” Ted Bryant as proof the story was true.
“We do not and never have had a manager by that name,” Ryan said.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in