Abducted, bound, sedated, flown to an undisclosed location in siberia, detained in a cell for a week, nose broken, then released only to be continuosly monitored by Putin on his presidential iPad.
No, we are not talking about an average Tuesday in the life of a Russian journalist: the Prime Minister’s latest target is an even more endangered species.
The World Wildlife Fund and Novaya Gazeta report that a rare snow leopard (and his FAVOURITE OLYMPIC MASCOT EVA!) had been abusively caged and tranported for 100 miles for the benefit of yet another photoshoot designed to secure Putin a job as a future Bond villain should Medvedev ever succeed in booting him out.
Endangered species – especially if they’re predators – are one of Mr Putin’s enthusiasms and he has previously been seen tagging polar bears, Siberian tigers and Beluga Whales.
The creatures he has tagged – tigers, bears and whales included – can be followed using their satellite collars on the official government website.
On the one hand, particularly in a country that WANTS global warming (hey! It’s cold over there, OK?) and where the word ‘green’ sooner connotes ‘dollars’ (or even ‘Civil War era bands of Ukrainian nationalists’) than ‘eco-friendliness’, Putin’s high profile focus on conservation should be welcomed.
By making the act of scientifically tagging creatures more macho than shooting and killing them, he is certainly setting a good example to countless Russian men (if only to boost his flagging ratings).
On the other hand, Putin does seem to possess extraordinary powers of attraction for some of the most endangered species, which, while rarely if ever seen even by professional conservationists, reliably appear in his vicinity at the very moment he finds himself in the wild.
Not unlike how random citizens always seemed to ask him just the right questions during his live, unscripted ‘meet the president’ events of old…or how his favourte choice of Olympic mascot just happened to win the popular vote.
Not that something like this will dent Russia’s image: after all, as Medvedev’s top econ aids has admitted, the country’s investment climate is already so bad that even the BP-TNK fiasco can’t hurt it anymore.
And at least it will take some attention away from Russia’s disastrous football meltdown (or was the whole leopard kidnapping a veiled message to Advokaat and Arshavin to clean up their act?).
But one thing is certain: the leopard got off much better than Doku Umarov.
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