Bizarre Russian comedy options confused ‘Joe Biden’ embroiled in identification swap plot

Images of a new Russian comedy set to take a swipe at outgoing US President Joe Biden – portraying him as a old man who becomes the victim of an accidental people swap – have been released.

The satirical take on Biden is set to air on Russian TV channel TNT next year, when Biden will no longer be in the White House. During the show, named Goodbye, Biden finds himself lost in Russia trying to determine why sanctions against Russia are supposedly not working.

The Moscow Times reports the Biden character in the show loses his passport during the visit and finds himself trapped. He tries to make money to buy a new passport working as an English teacher while living inside a Soviet-era apartment block.

During his time in Russia, the Biden character will “submerge himself in our reality” and “understand the Russian soul,” Russian TV execs said in a press release back in August.

“In the story, the president wants to figure out why his sanctions against Russians are not working,” they said. Another pensioner is then whisked away in an unintentional spy swap by the CIA, plans for the show revealed.

Dmitry Dyuzhev, a famous Russian actor and singer, will play Biden. He branded the show a “brave experiment” and an opportunity to “branch out.”

A review of the show in the Moscow Times, which is blocked in Russia, said: “The series ends up being nothing but a loose chain of jokes, desperately chasing cheap laughs while losing any depth in the process. The plot’s foundation seems as thin as smoke, and the characters’ motivations are as insubstantial as the wind.”

In August, Politico reported the series is “unlikely to be the mere brainchild of Russian creatives with an interest in global politics” and suggested the Kremlin could have been involved in the show’s inception.

Journalists from multiple outlets analysed so-called ‘Kremlin Leaks’ released in late 2023. Among the leaks were alleged details about links between popular movies, TV shows and support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. A fictionalised series of the Ukrainian revolution from 2013 to 2014 portrayed it as a US-backed coup, for instance.

Russia’s moves to censorship are more obvious elsewhere. As Mad Vlad’s forces continues its barbaric assault on Ukraine and at home, the Kremlin has pursued a policy of extreme censorship and crackdowns on dissent. One man, the BBC reported this year, was fined for wearing blue and yellow shoes, the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

Censorship around the war involves banning the discretisation of the Russian army. Criticism could earn a Russian citizen up to 15 years behind bars. “While space for peaceful protest and free expression was barely existent before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, these laws aim to stop anti-war voices in Russia from being heard altogether,” Amnesty International said.

Last month, Russian authorities in annexed Crimea charged a woman for allegedly buying NFT stamps in support of Ukrainian troops. Lyudmila Kolesnikova, 34, returned to the region for her mother’s funeral after living in Ireland, only to be detained at the cemetery by agents from one of Russia’s security services the FSB, according to the human rights group Memorial.

The security forces refused to let Lyudmila’s cat out of her home and she has since been in a Crimean pretrial detention facility on charges of treason, Memorial said.

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