Russian President Vladimir Putin has been depicted as Santa in an anti-Western propaganda video. The clip, which was produced by the production company Signal, showed ‘Santa Putin’ swapping an image of a child’s same-sex parents for one which showed a heterosexual couple.
He also gifted the child, who appears to be a boy being raised as a girl, a football, toy cars and a drum kit.
The short film seems to be based on pro-Kremlin propagandists who are looking to frame Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a clash between Russia and the West.
The clip also features Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ from the Nutcracker ballet.
After ‘Santa Putin’ makes the changes the child appeared to request in a letter dropped into his stocking, the Russian President peers back into the window from outside.
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He then lowers his beard and smirks as the child can be seen beaming with delight behind him.
The clip concludes with a caption which reads: “Dear Santa, thank you and merry Christmas!
“From all children of the world.”
Despite featuring as ‘Santa Putin’, Father Christmas is not one of the traditional figures during the festive period in Russia.
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The so-called Soviet Saint Nicholas, who is also known as Grandfather Frost, was banned following the October Revolution as it was considered too bourgeois and religious.
However, Joseph Stalin reportedly reinstated Ded Moroz as a gift bearer in the 1930s.
