2024-09-23 02:57:30
A video from a 2012 TV show has surfaced on social media in recent days, in which former classmates of Russian President Vladimir Putin reminisce about his youth. In a short excerpt, they discuss how he took on the role of an executioner during a school trip when he decided to decapitate ducklings. “They were all sorry. Then Voloďa took an ax and stepped in,” one of the women said.
“They were all sorry. Then Vlaďa took an ax and stepped in,” one of the women said in the recording. | Video: Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) via platform X
The 12-year-old video, which zooms in on Putin’s childhood, was first shared on the X social network by an account called SAW. “The teacher sent us to the nearest village to get food. Every day one of us went there. Once a classmate Nikolai went there and it took him a long time. Suddenly he appeared in the distance and chased ducklings in front of him,” says one of Putin’s former classmates on video.
A story about Putin from the CT program on NTV in 2012. Putin’s classmates and teacher recall how they got hold of live ducklings for lunch on a hike, but no one wanted to kill them. No one, except Volodya Putin – he took an axe and executed the ducklings, chopping off their heads pic.twitter.com/EaZazsswgJ
— SAW (@SA61W) September 8, 2024
It was said to be the current president of the Russian Federation, then a schoolboy, Vladimir Putin, who volunteered to play the role of their “executioner”. “Those ducklings didn’t want to jump into the cauldron by themselves. No one wanted to kill them, we felt sorry for them,” explains another classmate, who is soon joined by her former class teacher. “So Voloďa stood up and said: ‘Are we going to be without dinner, without food?’ and, as always, he took on an unpleasant task himself,” he adds admiringly.
Putin was then supposed to put on a red apron, grab an ax and wait for his classmates to deliver a fictitious sentence to the animal in a game, before he started chopping off the heads on their instructions. From the point of view of the narrators, the story is supposed to be proof of Putin’s courage and that he is ready to take on “difficult work” without thinking. “Back then at school it was killing ducklings. Now they are killing thousands of people and children without blinking an eye. And the audience in Russia continues to cheer and applaud,” Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on the X network.
This is a fragment of a 2012 program on a Russian channel about Putin’s childhood. His classmates and class teacher recall how, during a school camping trip in the Leningrad region, they, supposedly hungry, saw small ducklings, but no one wanted to kill them for food.
It was the… pic.twitter.com/87rUnRywOw
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) September 9, 2024
The late former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also spoke about the violent nature of the Russian president in the past. Toho was invited by the boss in the Kremlin to Russia in 2013 to participate in the hunt together. When the statesman returned from his trip to his homeland, he shared memories with his spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti and the leader of the Forza Italia party in the Chamber of Deputies, Fabrizo Cicchitto. It was Cicchitto who described the disturbing course of the meeting between the two leaders to journalists from the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
When the pair of men reached the forest, Putin handed Berlusconi a gun. “As they walked through the snow, the Kremlin chief is said to have spotted two deer and instructed Berlusconi to target one, saying: ‘This one is yours. Shoot,” described the former deputy.
Berlusconi should have made it clear that he cannot kill an animal. The Russian president shot both deer himself. “Then he looked at Berlusconi with satisfaction and said that he would offer him an extraordinary meal that day. He went down the slope to the corpses and held a knife in his hand. He cut open one of the animals and took out its heart,” said Cicchitto.
As an action hero: Putin hunted for his life on holiday in Siberia in 2017 (article with video here)
As an action hero: Putin hunted for his life on holiday in Siberia in 2017 | Video: Reuters