Meme Wars Follow Putin’s Historical Claims on Right to Ukrainian Territory

The rapturous Russian response to the occasion of the much-hyped Feb. 9 Tucker Carlson interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin, which continued before, during and after the event, was captured “tongue in cheek” by a blogger calling himself Russian Politics No Context claimed: “Feb. 9 – Victory day in the information war”:

That view was not reflected elsewhere. The two-hour monologue in which Putin used his revisionist version of the history of Ukraine to justify his “special military operation,” was castigated by serious Western commentators, with social media responding in its customary “out of the box” brickbats and ridicule.

While the interview was shown at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in the US, it didn’t hit the airwaves until 2:00 a.m. in Moscow, to which a number of Russian users simply asked “Are you up?” – in posts that have since been taken down.

Blogger Uliana Yapparova, commenting on the length of sock the Putin was revealing wrote: “I would have started with this question –  who chooses your pants?”

Others (naturally, of course) cast Putin as, Sauron, the archvillain in JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”:

Russian comedian Anton Pikuli wrote that Carlson’s interview followed this sort of pattern:

Tucker: “Mister Putin, why did you attack Ukraine?”

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Vlad: “Carlson, my dear boy, did you know that in the year 862 Rurik...”

Some social media users wanted to assert historical territorial claims of their own.

The former Mongolian president posted a map of the extent of the Mongol empire on Telegram:

Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer at London’s King’s College also picked up on the Mongolian theme:

Chris Bakke gave an explanation of the look of pained concentration on Tucker’s face as Putin finally moved on from the 9th century:

“Seva” wanted to know about NATO’s role in causing the war:

Some said the interview should have been conducted by British comedian Philomena Cunk who once asked a historian: “What is the Soviet Onion?” They thought she would get right to the nub of the issues at hand unlike her ex-Fox News counterpart:

The moral of this story is that if you, dear reader, want to better fill two hours of your time than watch a rerun of the Carlson-Putin interview there are many more similar memes out there who will explain everything that was said and in a far more entertaining manner.