Putin Admits His “Wildlife Adventures” Staged

Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that some of his most famous media adventures with wildlife were staged, RFE/RL says.

Russian television has shown videos of Putin tagging whales, saving a TV crew from a tiger, and taking to the skies to help Siberian white cranes learn to migrate.

In a meeting with Masha Gessen, an editor who lost her job for refusing to send reporters to cover last week’s crane flight, Putin conceded: “Of course, there are excesses. And I'm annoyed about it.”

In an account of the meeting in Bolshoi Gorod magazine, Gessen also quoted Putin as saying the wildlife encounters were worthwhile because they drew the public's attention to animals under threat.

Gessen edited a travel magazine until she was dismissed. She is also the author of The Man Without a Face: the Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, a book highly critical of the president.

Gessen said Putin, alongside the magazine's owner, had asked her whether she wanted to have her job back or whether she was comfortable in the role of “persecuted journalist.”

Gessen refused the offer to have her job back, saying she did not want to work in a magazine where the editor in chief is appointed by the president.

The Reuters news agency quoted Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, as saying the report represented “a correct account of the meeting except for some insignificant details.”

Putin takes biopsy from a gray whale

The reporters said the boat with Putin had meen lost for two hours in the ocean and the crew had started being nervous, however then prime minister had returned safe and brought some biological material for researches.

Putin saves a TV crew from a tiger

It could have been a wonderful PR-event if “Putin's tiger mission” hadn't been covered so bogus and pretencious at the same time. All Russian state-controlled mass media said the tiger had escaped from a trap and had been ready to attack news crew at the very same moment when Vladimir Putin had been ready to shoot it with a tranquilizer gun.

Putin becomes an alpha-crane

The latest Putin's wildlife adventure became teaching white Siberian cranes to migrate. However, after the event, a social networks comment from a biology student who works with cranes said that several cranes had been seriously injured and killed during transportation to the flight location. Still, Soon after, the author deleted the comment and changed her opinion and apologized for being too emotional.

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