Picture is unrelated but I couldn’t resist. Anyway I can justify it because that is probably what Putin did to South African security guards after they insisted his bodyguards put a top secret suitcase (ooh the intrigue!) through a security scanner. While the contents of the suitcase are unknown (dun dun dun!) people (aka the Daily Mail, duh) are speculating that these are the suitcases that contain Russia’s nuclear codes!!! After refusing to put the suitcases through the scanner, RT and the DM are reporting that Putin’s armed guards were involved in an ugly kerfluffle today in South Africa, where Putin is in town for the BRICS summit. With their typical subtle understated prose, the DM sums it up: “these were very particular suitcases, which are always carried right behind the President’s back and guards never let go even for one second.” The scrum got so out of hand that South African security guards tried to block Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov from entering. Russian journalist Victoria Prikhodko commented, “I must say, the African security man was half the size of the Russian, but then he had a machine gun in his hands which in the end helped him to push both our protocol and our security.” Unfortunately for us, the scuffle didn’t slide in a full scale fray, and ended with just a few pushes and “pokes”. The animosity didn’t end there however! While the “sensitive suitcases” (I CANT WITH THE DAILY MAIL ON THIS ONE) were eventually allowed in, Putin’s spokesman slighted the South Africans by commenting, “They manage football better. The incident happened because of the fault of the inviting side.” Oooh burn!

In some actual news (for a change), Red Scare has just learned that crazy Russian oligarch, arch nemesis of Abramovich, thorn in Putin’s side and court case drama expert, Boris Berezovsky was found dead in his bathtub at his home in Surrey. Berezovsky has survived several assassination attempts in the past, including a car bomb which killed his driver. Now because Red Scare has no desire to be killed by the FSB we aren’t going to speculate about what happened. He probably just died of a heart attack and not because he a constant and vehement critic of our Vova. He probably also wasn’t killed because he was accused of murdering the Russian spy Alexandr Litvinenko or because he won a libel case against these accusations. And he MOST DEFINITELY PROBABLY NOT wasn’t murdered by the FSB or by Papi Silvio seeking to avenge his Slavic Soul Brother. 

Ria Novosti reports that three of the Ukrainian Navy’s killer dolphins have escaped from their handlers during training exercises, probably to get some ass. Apparently, the Ukrainian navy employs dolphins that are trained to attack enemy combat swimmers using special knives or pistols attached to their heads (What. The. Fuck.) Reports indicate that only two of the five killer dolphins returned to their base at Sevastopol after a recent training exercise. Yury Plyachenko, a former Soviet naval anti-sabotage officer, says this is NBD. “Control over dolphins was quite common in the 1980s,” he says. Plyachenko remarked, “If a male dolphin saw a female dolphin during the mating season, then he would immediately set of after her. But they came back in a week or so.” TYPICAL MALES. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about! Now we have to watch our backs while swimming to make sure we don’t get stabbed to death by killer dolphins!

This is the angle photographers have resorted to to make these men look tall. 

touchrussia:

France’s President Francois Hollande and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meet at the Kremlin in Moscow on February 28, 2013

Source: AFP/East News

In what can only be described as the publicity tour of my dreams (if it included Papi Silvio, duh), Gerard Depardieu travelled to Russia this week to collect his new Russian passport! There are several interesting aspects to this story, so you may want to pour yourself a glass or twelve of vodka and settle in. First of all, the bloated buffoon (oops I mean RUSSIAN acting legend) went to the charming holiday hotspot CHECHNYA and was greeted by our favorite psychopathic wedding enthusiast warlord dictator, Ramzan Kadyrov. After dancing a traditional Chechen Iezginka with Kadyrov (do yourself a big favor and watch that video. you won’t even be able to handle all the grace and elegance in that clip.), Depardieu pledged to make and film a movie in Chechnya about the country’s “stunning rebirth”. I smell an Oscar, and the starring role Kadyrov has been dreaming of! He is polishing his golden gun in anticipation already. He was also handed the keys to a five room apartment in downtown Grozny (I know, we’re all seething with envy) and is now an honorary citizen of Chechnya! Don’t Fret! The Magical Mystery Tour didn’t end there. Next, Depardieu headed off to Saransk, the capital of the Russian Republic of Mordovia, where he waddled through the streets yelling,” Glory to Saransk, Glory to Mordovia, Glory to Russia!” while touring a cheese factory and a local poultry farm. How much do you want to bet he sampled the wares at that place. I mean just look at him! He also added that he was thinking of opening a restaurant in Sarank. What a busy fellow!

Sasha Baron Cohen just kicked himself for not coming up with this hot new fake country. The new bootleg Hilary Clinton (cut to Hil’s side eye), new Secretary of State John Kerry, praised state employees working on the promotion of democracy in the dangerous non-existant country of Kyrzakhstan! The Daily Mail (obvi), reports that Kerry was actually referring to Kyrgyzstan, but got it confused with Kazakhstan. Everyone I talk to always thinks these places are made up anyway, so maybe Kerry’s gaff wasn’t so bad. The best part of this article is that even the Daily mail cant keep it straight. They first claim that Kerry meant Kyrgyzstan but then in the next sentence, write “his blushes were spared by the State Department’s official record of the speech, given last Wednesday, when it corrected the name of the country to Kazakhstan.” Ok then! Glad everyone involved has such a firm handle on Central Asian geography. 

Well we here at Red Scare have been on top of the crazy antics of Central Asian leaders for like ever (read: a year) but looks like those lazy fools over at Foreign Policy are just catching on (LOL JK totz kidding love you mean it give us a job?!). Anyway there is a fantastic article in honor of President’s Day about leaders who like to make their birthdays national holidays (duh who wouldn’t?) Two of the best holidays come to us from our beloved Central Asia: Astana Day in Kazakhstan (also happens to be President Nazarbayev’s birthday what a coincidence!) and Turkmenistan’s celebration of leader’s birthdays, both dead and alive! Nazarbayev does it right: in 2010 his birthday celebrations started off with the opening of a new park, complete with Disney-esque monorail and a life-size human pinball ride (what!?) As if that wasn’t enough, “the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sang (in 2008, it was only Whitney Houston), and seven presidents plus the king of Jordan were in attendance. In total, the celebratory circuses, ballets, and fireworks cost Kazakhstan more than $10 million.” Pffft thats cheap and tawdry if you ask the dead dictator of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov, who commemorated his birthday back in 2005 by issuing a set of coins engraved with his family tree. A year later, the clearly romantic Saparmurat “minted a set of gold and silver coins to honor his own poetry — four collections and two volumes of a work he called the “Book of the Soul,” which, according to the Guardian, offered ‘moral guidance, including respecting your elders, and giving lots of jewellery to women’.” Papi Silvio rolled his eyes over that one bc he’s been using that trick for ages (see: his engraved bunga bunga Rolex gift bags). However, not one to be outdone, the romantic poet dictator also had national birthday parties involving horse races, parades, and festively dressed children who were forced to praise their leader in both English and Turkmen (oh wow CNN and BBC reporters what a strange coincidence that you happen to be here when these adorable children are singing my praises in English, what fortuitous timing!) Sadly, the lover of lavishing jewels upon women passed away, but his successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov (that’s his actual name, I wasn’t just slamming my face against the keyboard), has kept up the tradition. To honor his own birthday in 2011, Gurbanguly preformed a love song that he had written himself and then after the show, state television announced that the guitar, now a “national treasure and great asset” would be preserved in a museum. Well this is totally making me re-think next year’s birthday plans…last year I was trapped by that bitch Hurricane Sandy but I think this year I better get to work organizing a children’s parade in my honor and composing a book of poems about myself.

I call that title for my next book project so hands off. Anybody who knows anything knows that astrology is clearly highly accurate and informative (you think I’m kidding but you should see how many astrology apps I have on my phone). RFE/RL points out that Russians are in a tizzy because we just entered the dreaded year of the snake (note: my sister is what they call a Metal Snake and I can’t agree more with the characterization…) and apparently all sorts of bad shit has happened in Russia solely because of Chinese astrology. Obvi. And this year is supposed to be especially bad because it is a once in 60 years Black Water Snake Year (I swear that must be a band). Here is a quick synopsis of some stuff that happened in the Year of the Serpent:

1905: First Russian Revolution

1917: Bolshevik Revolution

1929: Beginning of collectivization

1941: WWII

1953: Death of Stalin (doesn’t seem so bad to me…)

1989: Eastern European Revolutions (again not so bad to some people…)

Well there is clearly only one thing to do with this news. Grab a bottle of vodka and steal a few of Putin’s gold bars and head for your nearest Cold War Era bunker to wait this shit out. 

One sweet day in February, Boyz II Men will be playing a concert in Moscow to help Russians get in the mood for some Papi Silvio style loving.  Because sometimes the jokes write themselves, the Moscow Times reports, “The stylish trio of Boyz II Men, the most successful R&B group of all time, is coming to Moscow on Feb 6. The group will perform a selection of their classic and new romantic ballads, hopefully giving Russian men some inspiration ahead of St. Valentine’s Day.” Leave it to our Vova to come up with such brilliant inspiration to help lazy Russian’s get baby making. Now I am not sure how this came about, but I can only imagine that Putin was going about his usual duties of hunting tigers, teaching the world how to be judo masters and finding priceless artifacts all while pondering how to solve Russia’s desperate demographic problem. Most likely he rung up Papi Silvio on speed dial for his expertise and after discarding his first idea of giving Rolex watches engraved with “With Love, Papi Silvio” (seriously, google it. also i want one of these more than life itself so get on it.) to women who successfully BEARED (lolz get it?) children, decided that the sweet, sweet tunes of the ultra-hip, modern, of the moment Boyz II Men would be the perfect solution to get people in the sack. As if that wasn’t enough, this isn’t the first time that our Vova has wormed his way into the beds of fertile Russians. Back in 2007, Vova declared the National Day of Conception holiday, in which people were to stay home and get busy. If a lucky lady gave birth exactly 9 months later, she could win a refrigerator! And they say romance is dead!

Here’s our Vova doing what he does best, being a friend to all children and animals. That said, this story really doesn’t require any commentary, this kid’s face below says it all. I think Putin probably told him that if he didn’t stand up and quit being a sissy he might go the way of Pussy Riot.