Kremlin Trying to Undermine Russia’s Puppet Government

There are at least two Vladimir V. Putins in Russia. One works in the Kremlin as president, wages war in Chechnya and takes great offense at the activities of the other Putin, who does a few hours’ work a week and goes on television on Sunday nights.

On TV, it is plain what an obnoxious character this other Putin can be. In fact, the president’s sense of outrage would be understandable were it not for the fact that the figure who makes him so mad is a rubber puppet.

This Putin is the star of “Kukly” (“Puppets”), a hilarious weekly quarter-hour of political satire, and is a deeply unflattering likeness of the president, with bulging eyes, wispy, thinning hair and a malevolent air.

Freed from the strictures of journalism, the “Kukly” satirists manage--week in, week out--to provide a penetrating, at times devastating, commentary on the president and his entourage.

The Putin puppet is taken out of storage for the taping each Wednesday or Thursday, but last week it missed its usual workout.

“About two weeks ago, a famous Kremlin bureaucrat approached our leadership and in an informal and confidential meeting produced a list of Kremlin demands--the first of which was that Putin’s puppet must disappear from our show,” “Kukly” scriptwriter Victor Shenderovich explained in an interview this week.

Accordingly, “Kukly,” which airs on Russia’s largest independent network, NTV, took the Putin puppet off the air for an episode. But the Putin character remained: conveyed as the thunderclaps and lightning strikes of a wrathful god.

The puppet depicting Alexander S. Voloshin, the Kremlin administration chief, assumed the role of Moses delivering God’s edict that “it is forbidden to see him or pronounce his name in vain.”

Shenderovich is sure that the KGB (now called the FSB, but often referred to by its old name) will do its best to suffocate the show’s persistent criticisms of Kremlin power. But as an artist, he likes to work against the grain.

“I personally welcome this kind of pressure,” he said. “It makes me much more productive and inventive. It has really invigorated us, pumped gallons of new adrenaline in our veins.

“A sailboarder can’t steer his board without a strong opposing wind. Let this wind slap into our faces and we will find the sail position to help us to steer our boat farther and faster ahead.”

When Boris N. Yeltsin was Russia’s president, politicians got used to “Kukly” and even expressed affection for it, and Shenderovich says the show got a little stale. Now reinvigorated, aggressive and occasionally risque, it has portrayed Putin especially scathingly.

During the presidential race, when Putin was riding high, he was shown as a repulsive baby, born screeching out slang--but a magic spell bewitched one and all into believing that the creature’s banalities were so profound that people made him their leader.

After his election, the president was portrayed as a timid czar overwhelmed by his tall, plump bride--representing Russia--waiting and cooing eagerly in the bridal suite.

“But she’s so big,” Putin whispered to a group of courtiers. “I don’t have experience with anything of this scale.”

“Just do what we’ve all done to her,” the Voloshin puppet replied.

An episode set 20 years in the future envisioned a sick and elderly Putin in the Moscow Central Clinic and a press secretary protesting in familiar Kremlin-speak that the president’s illness was just a small cold. It ended with Putin going on television to give a New Year’s Eve address--and, like Yeltsin, handing over power to a favored successor.

Five years ago, Russia’s prosecutor general launched a criminal investigation into “Kukly” for insulting the president. But it never came to anything.

“This time, the situation is significantly more serious. Don’t forget, we are dealing with the professional KGB,” Shenderovich warned. Yet he doubts that the program will go down heroically in flames.

“Instead, our opponents will try to quietly suffocate us by discrediting us, by luring our best specialists away with lavish promises and undermining our financial base,” the writer said. “They are doing it already, and they will try to choke us to death.”

Still, Shenderovich is not intimidated. On Sunday, the Putin puppet will be back.