An offhand remark made by Russian President Vladimir Putin towards his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Monday has earned the Kremlin a reprimand from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, after a reporter claimed that the Russian leader’s jibe was a crude joke about rape.
The controversy began after Putin’s joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, when he quoted a common rhyming expression, often used with children, while accusing Zelensky of failing to live up to the Minsk agreements, treaties signed in 2014 and 2015 that were meant to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.
“In Kiev, first they say they will comply, then they say it will destroy their country,” Putin complained. “And the president said recently there’s not one item in the Minsk agreements that he likes. ‘Like it or not, my beauty, bear with it.’ They must be fulfilled, it won’t work any other way.”
Some listeners were outraged by the president’s choice of expression, believing that he had made a reference to sexual violence, particularly after some pointed out that his words bore a close resemblance to lyrics from a 1990s song by punk group Krasnaya Plesen (’Red Mold), in which the singer describes a necrophiliac fantasy and says, “like it or not, / my beauty, sleep.”
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