This was Vladimir Putin’s first outing since the Wagner group’s aborted coup.
Russian President Vladimir Putin drew a cartoon smiley face on a whiteboard while visiting tech exhibition in Moscow – his first outing since the aborted Wagner coup. A video showing Mr Putin drawing the face with big ears has sparked a flurry of comments on social media, with some users mocking the Mr Putin. Russian news agency Tass reported that the President visited the event to check out the latest in touchscreen technology displayed by the firm NexTouch, as per a Newsweek report.
The clip on Twitter shows Mr Putin approaching a whiteboard at the exhibition with some maths equation written on it and drawing the weird smiley head, which many users said resembled SpongeBob SquarePants.
🇷🇺✍️ El presidente de Rusia, Vladímir #Putin, dejó un autógrafo en una pantalla interactiva de producción rusa durante una visita a la exposición de la Agencia para Iniciativas Estratégicas (ASI) celebrada en Moscú. La industrializacion I+D es la salida soberana para las naciones pic.twitter.com/BYiQqzrZuv
— Mario Carman (@mariocarman) June 29, 2023
The sketch showed a head with wavy hair and massive ears. Mr Putin created the art after the company executive asked him to leave and autograph, as per Tass.
No Russian official has officially commented on the drawing, the Newsweek report said.
Mr Putin also put his name under the sketch. The people gathered around welcomed the sketch with an applause, which was met with a look of satisfaction on the Russian President’s face, the outlet further said.
“Putin’s been watching SpongeBob SquarePants hasn’t he,” one user commented on Twitter. One journalist, Jason Corcoran, tweeted that Mr Putin was “doing his best to show it’s business as usual” following the mutiny against his authority staged by Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The Telegraph reported that Mr Putin’s outing was a rare meet-and-greet – a rare charm offensive – aimed at projecting support for his rule.
The 70-year-old also greeted a crowd of supporters on Wednesday evening in Dagestan, during which Mr Putin clicked selfies with a girl.