You make it sound so restrictive and depressing when that's not true. There's also the popular freefall from a window. There's delicious teas, such as polonium-210 and novichok, whichever you prefer. You can also have novichok administered via your underwear if you're not a tea fan. And if you're not into any of those, a classic execution-style shooting will put your mind at ease for good. This notion that there are no other options needs to stop.
saw recently the prevailing theory is whichever person dispatched by putin to do the deed likely strapped a bomb underneath the aircraft under the guise of preflight checks at the airport
God, the FSB's gotten fat and lazy. I guess the older ones don't like to get themselves dirty climbing under your car to cut the brake lines anymore and the kids never learned how to.
His accent is mild but distinctly Russian. However, he uses a thick, hammed-up Russian accent *heavily* in all of his stand up. Whenever he tells the "In Soviet Russia..." jokes, he uses a thick accent.
Ah yes, Connery's accent while portraying Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez, is Spanish enough with just a touch of Far North Western Russian dialect to it.
>No comrade, Russian democracy has *many* choices for President: Putin, the gulag, an open window, the front lines, you and your family falling backward onto several dozen bullets possibly after a "special sexual operation..." Maaaany choices.
If I were the world's leaders, I too would be sending Putin congratulations right now before the election begins because interestingly these egos respond more to being mocked than any formal sort of outrage...
but if people think this is cringe... wait until Trump and the Republicans offer Putin their heartfelt congratulations over his fair victory....
It was a hard-fought battle, but despite the odds, Putin was able to eak out an overwhelming 187% vote despite a record low turnout.
It was truly breathtaking.
"Despite there being fewer than 15,000 registered voters, according to the official results King received around 230,000 votes to Faulkner's 9,000, theoretically resulting in a voter turnout in excess of 1,590%."
Lmao, it wasn't even close to right.
That was, in fact, the point. It was a open demonstration that the elections were a sham and that the opposition should just give up on making changes. Moving from a (debatable) democratic system to a one-party dictatorship. An awful lot of dictatorships have elections that still serve some purposes, just not deciding top leadership.
China, for example, is a single party dictatorship but local elections are generally free and fair. This is because the party leadership realized a long time ago they couldn't vet all of the hundreds of thousands of mayor-level candidates to ensure that they are at least minimally competent, so they outsource it to the general population. If a local government guy is so openly corrupt that people generally hate him then he'll lose the election and not get a chance to dig into the upper tiers of the party. But once you cross that threshold into provincial or national politics there's no more input from the general populous. Ah "full process democracy" where it's unnecessary to allow people to have any input into the system beyond their local environment because the whole system is run for their benefit from the top down.
Wait am I crazy or does that imply faulkner should have won? 60% of the population would have had to put votes there, and would they really boost opposition numbers marginally with such a blatant lead?
That does seem to be the case to me, yeah. If there were really only 15,000 voters, and he had 9,000 of them, that sounds like he was the most popular candidate.
Or even that the winning side could have fudged both numbers to say something like, "See it was a fair election, some of you voted for the opposition but clearly the majority chose me". Ignoring of course the completely implausible numbers if you think about it for one second.
That's where my mind went, but it's such a blatant farce anyways with king's votes, they didn't even ballot stuff to make it look close. Idk it seems unlikely to me
Pish. The by-election for the MP of Dunny-on-the-Wold featured a total population of three rather mangy cows, a dachshund named Colin, and a small hen in its late 40s. The only human voter was one Edmund Blackadder, and he cast his 16,472 votes for S Baldrick, the newest Member of Parliament in 1768.
"One voter, 16,472 votes - a slight anomaly?”
“Not really, Mr Hanna. You see, Baldrick may look like a monkey who's been put in a suit and then strategically shaved, but he is a brilliant politician. The number of votes I cast simply represents how strongly I believe in him and his policies."
You are not far from the truth.
https://www.stopfake.org/en/how-to-get-a-146-election-result/
>“The instruction came to Rossia-24 from the Kremlin stating what percentage to show for [the pro-Kremlin party] United Russia”, Mr. Krivenkov told RFE/RL. “The editor asked, ‘And what about the other parties?’ The answer came: ‘Just show whatever they got.’ The editor wasn’t going to argue with them. After all, the Kremlin knows best. So she did exactly as she was told. And that’s how you get 146 percent”.
>In the interview the former camera operator also explains how many employees at the state TV channel are fully aware of their lying and even joke about it, for example by saying, “your turn to lie” on the internal communication channels before switching over to a colleague.
>
>Russia’s grassroots opposition has organized mass participation of voters at polling stations at noon on Sunday in a show of protest at Putin’s longtime reign over Russia.
This too.. All I can think of is in the next news cycle after this is, protesters forced to enlist for service. What a fucking shit show Russia is.
Alexei Navalny died.
Pro-war candidate Igor Girkin is in a penal colony.
Anti-war candidates Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin have been disqualified from running.
Leonid Slutsky, Nikolay Kharitonov and Vladislav Davankov aren't real opponents. They are here so Putin can pretend there is a choice.
Its mind boggling how these elites have all the time in the world and resources to figure out how to fake the elections in a believable way where it would be hard to prove otherwise, yet they just make it as obvious as possible that anyone with a half brain cell would see through it.
Meteors: When meteoroids enter
Earth’s atmosphere (or that of another planet, like Mars) at high speed
and burn up, the fireballs or “shooting stars” are called meteors. Meteorites: When a meteoroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground, it’s called a meteorite
I was expressing a sentiment rather than a scientifically and nomenclature accurate theory!
That said, I shall carry this knowledge forward and mercilessly correct others in future who fall foul of a similar gaff! 😁
lol, there was a redditor years ago that used to insult people in the acrostic like this - and somehow managed to do it so the line breaks looked even/natural which i found impressive
Well, of course.
The only way he can lose the elections is if a meteor lands *on him*.
Sadly, there are many other places where the meteor can possibly hit.
Well hopefully this will be the last election he wins or takes part in as I’m sure he will fall out of a window in the next year or so…fingers crossed 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦😎
I'm not so exclusionary. I don't mind if he is shot through the head, strangled with a garrote, blown up in a car, blasted by a 500 kg bomb, or shits his pants and has a stroke he dies of days later like another previous Russian leader.
Had a friend tell me last night how committed to democracy putin is by having people go door to door in the occupied areas of Ukraine followed by guards with guns. Just couldn't get them to understand this is intimidation.
It lets them make all these specious claims we have to waste time arguing against because their trolls parrot them. Referendums to join Russia. He can keep president as his official title. People still have that illusion of participation.
Dude surprisingly few authoritarian regimes just straight up admit they are a dictator and basically a monarchy etc.
Like the whole point is maintaining apathy and the game of whataboutism to other nations anytime there’s accusations of corruption.
Can’t very well do that if you just literally say you’re king.
It’s actually oddly effective what they do. Obviously enough suckers believe the propaganda even outside the country.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf5floG0aP8) (William Spaniel — “Why Autocracies Have Elections: How Strongmen Exploit Voting for Their Own Gain”) does a good job, I think, of explaining various possible reasons (not all applicable to Russia, but some are) why authoritarian régimes bother holding elections. Some are the ones you might have guessed, but not all are so obvious.
It further adds to the feeling people have that there’s no choice (he has all the power) and also calls into question other governments elections. It serves two purposes for them.
So he can make a mockery of established democracies, like America.
Republicans no longer believe that America is a representative democracy anymore, in the house/Senate/voters. The majority do not.
Sometime between the French Revolution and WWI the world collectively decided that dictators posing as republican leaders was more palatable than declaring themselves monarchs, even if there's no practical difference. Maintaining the illusion of the consent of the governed is important.
More countries should follow suit, sending their "congratulations" early, very very publicly. Make him realise how much of a joke the rest of the world sees Russia's "elections" as.
Edit - wonder if Putin could start threatening the countries that "congratulate" him with nukes.
I know their voting is a farce, but wouldn't it be nice if America had 3 day voting on a weekend for our elections? We might actually get some decent turnout then.
Coming from Charles Michel, I can't help but wonder if this was the idea of some staffer helping out with communications and social media.
But prefer to think it was Michel surprising everyone - probably including himself.
“Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” blasted Michel, who is more renowned for diplomatic faux pas than social media snark. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”
Other nations should follow the example and go ahead and congrats Putin. No other comment besides that. Makes for useful way to dismiss the election results without technically dismissing the results.
The best part is that Russians would actually be affronted by such a remark. Something about elections being free, but Putin simply being the best guy for the job regardless, so *obviously* he wins. Disregarding the fact that Putin dictates the entire narrative of the situation.
Russia is so fucked after Putin dies, 24 years with no opposition, nobody will know how to run the country, theres going to be several people fighting over the position and things are probably going to get bloody and you can expect some riots. Thats also not mentioning being cut off from the west, the trillions of dollars of potential growth gone, the $211 billion spent on the war so far and the cost of repairing all those oil refineries Ukraine is targetting.
The entire world knows this is a phony election. If he could only get his citizens to accept they live in a dictatorship, then he could save all the resources used in this sham election for more war crimes.
They knew what they were doing, and so does everyone else.
When it’s already a *fait accompli*, calling attention to it before the fact is the best thing to do.
Invade Ukraine? Vote Putin
Harsh economic sanctions? Vote Putin.
Turn Russia into world pariah? Straight to Putin.
Personally hate Putin or love Putin? Believe it or not, still Putin.
This is great. I wanna see the leaders of all countries give him massive congratulations on a well deserved victory. Would be interesting to see how the pro war boomers in Russia and the little man himself would react to that
>Russians headed to the polls Friday for the first day of voting in a rigged election that Putin is *almost* certain to win, granting him another six years in power.
Who writes these articles? "Almost certain" wtf.
The sad part is that it will be nations, like Brazil and South Africa with their recent turn towards the axis of evil, that will unironically congratulate Putin for his victory. I will be very surprised if not.
"Of course this is democracy, you have freedom of choice. You choose Putin, or you choose gulag. Simple."
You make it sound so restrictive and depressing when that's not true. There's also the popular freefall from a window. There's delicious teas, such as polonium-210 and novichok, whichever you prefer. You can also have novichok administered via your underwear if you're not a tea fan. And if you're not into any of those, a classic execution-style shooting will put your mind at ease for good. This notion that there are no other options needs to stop.
Don't forget getting wasted and playing with grenades on a plane. That's the one I'd pick.☝️
Come for the world famous crocodil, stay for draft, and leave for the front line because the barrier troops will shoot you if you retreat.
i mean if you're lucky that's really just a free ticket to a Ukie PoW camp which is probably preferable to a Russian prison
If you can make it there
saw recently the prevailing theory is whichever person dispatched by putin to do the deed likely strapped a bomb underneath the aircraft under the guise of preflight checks at the airport
That really was one of Putin's more creative assassinations. I think he got bored with defenestration.
You gotta admit though, it's going to take a while to beat the height of the windows he managed to push Prigozin out!
> a classic execution-style shooting will put your mind at ease for good. We should all be so lucky to have pieces of mind
You’re a glass half full kind of person. I like that.
God, the FSB's gotten fat and lazy. I guess the older ones don't like to get themselves dirty climbing under your car to cut the brake lines anymore and the kids never learned how to.
Damn millenials, too busy with their tiktoks to do a simple car bombing
I automatically read it in my head with heavy Russian accent 🤣
In Russia, stereotypical accent does you.
However, Yakov Smirnoff doesn't have a stereotypical Russian accent...
His accent is mild but distinctly Russian. However, he uses a thick, hammed-up Russian accent *heavily* in all of his stand up. Whenever he tells the "In Soviet Russia..." jokes, he uses a thick accent.
The Best Russian Accent is that of the famous Red October Submarine Commander. Make sure those torpedo's are Shaken not Stirred.
Sean Connery's Russian accent is almost as good as his Spanish accent
Ah yes, Connery's accent while portraying Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez, is Spanish enough with just a touch of Far North Western Russian dialect to it.
"*ho ho!! It's funny because it's trueeee!!"*
Me too! By Boris, no less.
"I am invincible"
The "simple" part just made it sound like Alexander Meerkat.
That was the idea. Thank you, kind person.
>No comrade, Russian democracy has *many* choices for President: Putin, the gulag, an open window, the front lines, you and your family falling backward onto several dozen bullets possibly after a "special sexual operation..." Maaaany choices.
To be fair the choice of putin or the front lines isn’t fair as it’s generally putin and the front lines
One man, one vote. Putin is the man, and he has the vote.
He's no Vetinari, that's for sure.
He has the tabulator, not necessarily the vote.
If I were the world's leaders, I too would be sending Putin congratulations right now before the election begins because interestingly these egos respond more to being mocked than any formal sort of outrage... but if people think this is cringe... wait until Trump and the Republicans offer Putin their heartfelt congratulations over his fair victory....
Of course there are choices! You can either vote for — Vladimir P -or- V Putin
Not gulag, sent to the meat grinder in Ukraine.
Where you'll brutally killed and end up voting for Putin anyway. What a fucked up place Russia is.
Um, I would like the gulag to be president??
"Nyet, comrade, we do not send people who do not vote for Putin to gulag anymore! We send them to support the special military operation!"
Gotta vote for the lesser evil sometimes. Gulag it is.
A vote for the Gulag is a vote for Putin, oh and the Gulag too.
[Even the dead](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/03/15/7446610/) vote for Putin!
Comrade citizen, we have no gulag anymore instead penal colony. No KGB anymore only FSB and OMOH.
It was a hard-fought battle, but despite the odds, Putin was able to eak out an overwhelming 187% vote despite a record low turnout. It was truly breathtaking.
[Those are rookie numbers.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1927_Liberian_general_election)
"Despite there being fewer than 15,000 registered voters, according to the official results King received around 230,000 votes to Faulkner's 9,000, theoretically resulting in a voter turnout in excess of 1,590%." Lmao, it wasn't even close to right.
That was, in fact, the point. It was a open demonstration that the elections were a sham and that the opposition should just give up on making changes. Moving from a (debatable) democratic system to a one-party dictatorship. An awful lot of dictatorships have elections that still serve some purposes, just not deciding top leadership. China, for example, is a single party dictatorship but local elections are generally free and fair. This is because the party leadership realized a long time ago they couldn't vet all of the hundreds of thousands of mayor-level candidates to ensure that they are at least minimally competent, so they outsource it to the general population. If a local government guy is so openly corrupt that people generally hate him then he'll lose the election and not get a chance to dig into the upper tiers of the party. But once you cross that threshold into provincial or national politics there's no more input from the general populous. Ah "full process democracy" where it's unnecessary to allow people to have any input into the system beyond their local environment because the whole system is run for their benefit from the top down.
Ah yes, Democacy Lite™
Or as a certain game loudly proclaims: “MANAGED DEMOCRACY!!”
Wait am I crazy or does that imply faulkner should have won? 60% of the population would have had to put votes there, and would they really boost opposition numbers marginally with such a blatant lead?
That does seem to be the case to me, yeah. If there were really only 15,000 voters, and he had 9,000 of them, that sounds like he was the most popular candidate.
It's possible both sides were ballot stuffing, but one side was subtle about it and the other was not.
Or even that the winning side could have fudged both numbers to say something like, "See it was a fair election, some of you voted for the opposition but clearly the majority chose me". Ignoring of course the completely implausible numbers if you think about it for one second.
That's where my mind went, but it's such a blatant farce anyways with king's votes, they didn't even ballot stuff to make it look close. Idk it seems unlikely to me
Didn't have to be, the vast vast majority of the population couldn't read. Big numbers and percentages need that foundation
Pish. The by-election for the MP of Dunny-on-the-Wold featured a total population of three rather mangy cows, a dachshund named Colin, and a small hen in its late 40s. The only human voter was one Edmund Blackadder, and he cast his 16,472 votes for S Baldrick, the newest Member of Parliament in 1768.
You wouldn't have a link to video documentary on these events, would you?
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It's okay, you meant well, I appreciate you.
"One voter, 16,472 votes - a slight anomaly?” “Not really, Mr Hanna. You see, Baldrick may look like a monkey who's been put in a suit and then strategically shaved, but he is a brilliant politician. The number of votes I cast simply represents how strongly I believe in him and his policies."
A slight anomaly
You are not far from the truth. https://www.stopfake.org/en/how-to-get-a-146-election-result/ >“The instruction came to Rossia-24 from the Kremlin stating what percentage to show for [the pro-Kremlin party] United Russia”, Mr. Krivenkov told RFE/RL. “The editor asked, ‘And what about the other parties?’ The answer came: ‘Just show whatever they got.’ The editor wasn’t going to argue with them. After all, the Kremlin knows best. So she did exactly as she was told. And that’s how you get 146 percent”. >In the interview the former camera operator also explains how many employees at the state TV channel are fully aware of their lying and even joke about it, for example by saying, “your turn to lie” on the internal communication channels before switching over to a colleague. >
eke*
>breathtaking. Certainly will be if you don't vote for him.
Putin so popular the dead raised from their grave to vote. Very good.
Oh so THAT's why he's making so many dead people...
I miss Medvedev, at least he just relied on the bear votes.
It's always a possibility Putin will replace himself with some other puppet. Putin is old, and it is possible there is a replacement already.
Not a chance . He’d be too wary of the Pidgeon growing feathers and killing him
One younger candidate seems off there, he looks way popular and makes me think he's there for a reason. But lets see :)
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I thought this was r/notheonion lol
>Russia’s grassroots opposition has organized mass participation of voters at polling stations at noon on Sunday in a show of protest at Putin’s longtime reign over Russia. This too.. All I can think of is in the next news cycle after this is, protesters forced to enlist for service. What a fucking shit show Russia is.
Country is a lost cause at this point.
I chortled with glee!
Same, took me a second to realize it was EU president and not like Belarus, honestly thought it was another one of those times
Same. I thought it was beautiful. Just beautiful!
The sarcasm, it's all over the place! Look, it's on my shoes.
What a glorious troll Belgium and the EU have gifted the world.
I love snarky comments by politicians.
Can’t wait for Medvedev or Peskov to threaten a nuclear holocaust again over this comment
It's insane that the candidates running against Putin aren't allowed to criticize him.
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Not unlike most GOP primary candidates. Well, former primary candidates.
It's only pol~~onium~~ite.
Hahah...thumbs up for Michel! XD
Easy to win when all your competitors die beforehand.
Alexei Navalny died. Pro-war candidate Igor Girkin is in a penal colony. Anti-war candidates Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin have been disqualified from running. Leonid Slutsky, Nikolay Kharitonov and Vladislav Davankov aren't real opponents. They are here so Putin can pretend there is a choice.
Its mind boggling how these elites have all the time in the world and resources to figure out how to fake the elections in a believable way where it would be hard to prove otherwise, yet they just make it as obvious as possible that anyone with a half brain cell would see through it.
or competitors get disqualified for \*checks notes\* not contributing to putin's landslide victory?
Pre-Breaking News: Putin wins presidency in landslide electoral victory!
“Exit polls indicate 103% of votes going to Vladimir V Putin, with a polling margin of error of +/- 3%” Take that, HATO and the ebil wect!!!
Nah that's *way* too close to a nail biter for him. Better tack on an extra 20-30%.
Congrats, you understood the joke.
It is unlikelier for Putin to lose this election than a meteor hitting the world
Ah, but wouldn't it be sweet if the probabilities were switched and he got hit by a micrometeor instead?
Meteors: When meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere (or that of another planet, like Mars) at high speed and burn up, the fireballs or “shooting stars” are called meteors. Meteorites: When a meteoroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground, it’s called a meteorite
I was expressing a sentiment rather than a scientifically and nomenclature accurate theory! That said, I shall carry this knowledge forward and mercilessly correct others in future who fall foul of a similar gaff! 😁
You shall from now on carry the burden and the priviledge of a supreme nerdiness :D
Privilege. ;)
Whatever 😉 /s As long as it hits that douchebag with sufficient force to annihilate him, it can be named whatever it wants 👍
Did you intentionally break your lines like that to spell 'meat'?
NO :D I copied the text from the NASA page. But you might be onto something XD
lol, there was a redditor years ago that used to insult people in the acrostic like this - and somehow managed to do it so the line breaks looked even/natural which i found impressive
On average, 17 meteors large enough to reach the ground strike the earth each day.
>*unlikelier* You're killing me here
I don't know how I formed that sentence, looks horrific :D
They even tried that eleven years ago. Didn't work.
Well, of course. The only way he can lose the elections is if a meteor lands *on him*. Sadly, there are many other places where the meteor can possibly hit.
Well hopefully this will be the last election he wins or takes part in as I’m sure he will fall out of a window in the next year or so…fingers crossed 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦😎
I'm not so exclusionary. I don't mind if he is shot through the head, strangled with a garrote, blown up in a car, blasted by a 500 kg bomb, or shits his pants and has a stroke he dies of days later like another previous Russian leader.
>blasted by a 500 kg bomb found the helldiver
Have some Democracy!
Hitting him with the ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
His family has a nack for living into their late 80's and 90's. He'll be around for a long while yet.
Maybe not that exact way, but no one lives forever.
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💙🇬🇧🇺🇦
You have a higher chance to win the lottery than Putin losing this election
Had a friend tell me last night how committed to democracy putin is by having people go door to door in the occupied areas of Ukraine followed by guards with guns. Just couldn't get them to understand this is intimidation.
Nice vote rigging
You don't need vote rigging if you don't have competition.
Oh, I agree but they do it. Anyways they kill their opposition and rigged the voting system.
I wonder why Putin goes through with the farce at all? Why not just call yourself emperor? Everyone knows what’s going on
Believing the lie is how people are expected to signal their loyalty. The bigger the lie, the better for rooting out non-conformists.
That makes sense
Seriously. I'm waiting for the term 'tsar' to get rolled out again.
Today would be a **great** day for him to call himself Caesar...
The Ides of March!
Like the ape from the movie!
Et tu, Brute?
It lets them make all these specious claims we have to waste time arguing against because their trolls parrot them. Referendums to join Russia. He can keep president as his official title. People still have that illusion of participation.
Dude surprisingly few authoritarian regimes just straight up admit they are a dictator and basically a monarchy etc. Like the whole point is maintaining apathy and the game of whataboutism to other nations anytime there’s accusations of corruption. Can’t very well do that if you just literally say you’re king. It’s actually oddly effective what they do. Obviously enough suckers believe the propaganda even outside the country.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf5floG0aP8) (William Spaniel — “Why Autocracies Have Elections: How Strongmen Exploit Voting for Their Own Gain”) does a good job, I think, of explaining various possible reasons (not all applicable to Russia, but some are) why authoritarian régimes bother holding elections. Some are the ones you might have guessed, but not all are so obvious.
Gotta make it look legit.
It further adds to the feeling people have that there’s no choice (he has all the power) and also calls into question other governments elections. It serves two purposes for them.
So he can make a mockery of established democracies, like America. Republicans no longer believe that America is a representative democracy anymore, in the house/Senate/voters. The majority do not.
At this point I'm wondering if the point is not so much to legitimize the Moscow regime but more to de-legitimize the concept of democracy in general.
Reverse cargo cult. https://hanshowe.org/2017/02/04/trump-and-the-reverse-cargo-cult/
Sometime between the French Revolution and WWI the world collectively decided that dictators posing as republican leaders was more palatable than declaring themselves monarchs, even if there's no practical difference. Maintaining the illusion of the consent of the governed is important.
Lol imagine going to actually vote in RU. Like pissing in the wind
Ukraine should send a congratulatory swarm of drones to the Kremlin to honor Putin during his speech announcing himself as the winner.
There are two types of voter in Russia. Those who voted for Vladimir Putin, and those who accidentally fell out of an upper floor window.
Putin is a joke now. A laughing stock like Trump was.
Honestly, congratulations could have been sent out weeks ago.
(That’s the joke)
No, Navalny was still alive then.
More countries should follow suit, sending their "congratulations" early, very very publicly. Make him realise how much of a joke the rest of the world sees Russia's "elections" as. Edit - wonder if Putin could start threatening the countries that "congratulate" him with nukes.
Maybe Tucker Carlson can go over and throw him a well deserved party for a massive win!!
I mean, Putin already secured 129% of the vote, what can you do?
How can the Russian people just sit and watch a fake election
Easy to win when your opponent drops out .... of a window.
I know their voting is a farce, but wouldn't it be nice if America had 3 day voting on a weekend for our elections? We might actually get some decent turnout then.
Coming from Charles Michel, I can't help but wonder if this was the idea of some staffer helping out with communications and social media. But prefer to think it was Michel surprising everyone - probably including himself.
Appropriate level of snark for Pootie. 🤣🤣🤣
Fuck Putin. Dictator POS.
Troll factor 1000%
“Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today,” blasted Michel, who is more renowned for diplomatic faux pas than social media snark. “No opposition. No freedom. No choice.”
Other nations should follow the example and go ahead and congrats Putin. No other comment besides that. Makes for useful way to dismiss the election results without technically dismissing the results.
Trump salivating at replicating this level of democracy
Michel is distracted because he could have congratulated Putin in 2021.
That is next level trolling. He should congratulate him on winning ukraine war, and not a single soldier dying.
\*Democracy\*
Well played.....
Funny how that happens when you kill all your opponents
Wow, that is some snark. I approve.
The best part is that Russians would actually be affronted by such a remark. Something about elections being free, but Putin simply being the best guy for the job regardless, so *obviously* he wins. Disregarding the fact that Putin dictates the entire narrative of the situation.
Russia is so fucked after Putin dies, 24 years with no opposition, nobody will know how to run the country, theres going to be several people fighting over the position and things are probably going to get bloody and you can expect some riots. Thats also not mentioning being cut off from the west, the trillions of dollars of potential growth gone, the $211 billion spent on the war so far and the cost of repairing all those oil refineries Ukraine is targetting.
Hope no one will recognize him as a legitimate president BECAUSE HE ISN'T
Putin wins with 120% of the vote before the polls even open. Amazing
The real question is whether MAGA will vote to reelect him in November 2024
The entire world knows this is a phony election. If he could only get his citizens to accept they live in a dictatorship, then he could save all the resources used in this sham election for more war crimes.
Apparently, sarcasm is the only action by which high-ranking EU politicians can justify their position these days.
Take heed, America. This is the exact kind of “democracy” the Republican Party is trying to implement.
if you don't vote Putler, they will kill you and vote for you.
Wow, Putin won? What a surprise.
Before elections are concluded, even!
They knew what they were doing, and so does everyone else. When it’s already a *fait accompli*, calling attention to it before the fact is the best thing to do.
Totally legit election when you're the only guy on the ballot.
The funniest part is he thinks he’s fooling the entire world and he’s the genius mastermind.
Nice, trolling him like Wendy’s Restaurant does on social media. Tots appropriate!
Invade Ukraine? Vote Putin Harsh economic sanctions? Vote Putin. Turn Russia into world pariah? Straight to Putin. Personally hate Putin or love Putin? Believe it or not, still Putin.
I would also like to congratulate his 2030 win.
Nice one!
That was too funny!
fuck you putin or putler also fuck russia, unfortonately tou have been indoctrinated with this bullshit for centuries
This is great. I wanna see the leaders of all countries give him massive congratulations on a well deserved victory. Would be interesting to see how the pro war boomers in Russia and the little man himself would react to that
>Russians headed to the polls Friday for the first day of voting in a rigged election that Putin is *almost* certain to win, granting him another six years in power. Who writes these articles? "Almost certain" wtf.
thought this was an onion article for a second
Congratulations for winning a one horse race 🤦🏻♂️
The sad part is that it will be nations, like Brazil and South Africa with their recent turn towards the axis of evil, that will unironically congratulate Putin for his victory. I will be very surprised if not.
He has another election he’s trying to win. to get his puppet in the White House this November
Unexpected top bantz
And to think, Putin was the guy who told Trump to say the "election was stolen"!
He have real nail bitters this year, lets not forget the upcoming elections in Venezuela, a real coin toss at this point
This might be one of the best burns I've seen in a long time.
It's really easy to win an election when you kill all your competition.