A Russian TV comedy show set to premiere in 2025 will depict U.S. President Joe Biden moving to Russia undercover to “figure out why his sanctions are not working against the Russians,” the TNT TV channel has announced.
Russia has been hit with a wide range of sanctions imposed by the Biden administration and Ukraine’s other Western allies over the full-scale invasion, which was launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) greets his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden (right) during the U.S.-Russia Summit 2021 at the La Grange Villa near the Geneva Lake, on June 16, 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland. A new Russian TV comedy show set to premiere in 2025 will depict the American president moving to Russia undercover.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Biden, 81, will be played by Russian actor Dmitriy Dyuzhev, 46, in the fictionalized comedy series called Goodbye, created by the Russian TV network TNT. In the series, the president decides to fly to Russia “to understand the Russian soul.”
“[Joe Biden] loses his documents on the very first day, but finds a new friend – a real Russian patriot. Now Biden is forced to live in an ordinary [Soviet]-era apartment, work as an English teacher in order to save money for new documents and try to return to America,” a news release describing the TV show said.
Alexander Baldin, creator of Goodbye, said the show “is definitely a comedy with elements of satire,” the English-language Ukrainian online newspaper Kyiv Independent reported.
“We wanted to create a story that not only entertains but also makes you think about the relations between Russia and America, showing them through the prism of humor and absurdity,” Baldin added.
Washington has gradually expanded the sanctions it imposed against Russia throughout Putin’s war. Russia’s economy took a hit after foreign exchange reserves were frozen and Moscow was cut off from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) banking system.
In March 2022, days into the war, Biden also announced a ban on Russia’s oil imports, saying the move would target the Russian economy’s “main artery”.
The Wilson Center, a federally subsidized U.S. think tank, said in analysis in February that “the pressure from the sanctions is mounting and having an impact on the Russian economy.”
The think tank added that recent moves from Russia’s allies and the country’s financial maneuvers “signal a discontinuity between the Kremlin’s outward display of confidence, derived from a combination of recent if minor battlefield victories and the political chaos in the United States, and an underlying sense of insecurity.”
“Renewed concerns about the health of the Russian economy in the run-up to the symbolic anniversary of the war and the Russian presidential election in mid-March could explain the recent uptick in domestic repression and spending,” the think tank said.
“Despite naysayers, the sanctions against Russia are working. Time and a firm application of pressure should see an even bigger impact on the Russian economy,” the Wilson Center added.
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