"Arrest of Vladimir Putin: A Report from the Courtroom" is a

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...

, originally posted on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

on February 13, 2012 by the Russian video publishing group "Lancelot". The mock video shows Russian Prime Minister

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

facing a courtroom trial. The footage was taken from the real-life trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and then digitally altered to make a faux news report. Putin's reply to the judge is taken from television footage where Putin is participating in the 2010 census. The video was viewed nearly 3 million times within three days and as of June 2020 has nearly 13 million views. Khodorkovsky's legal team placed a link to the video on his

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

feed. The video was also reposted at the

LiveJournal LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, a ...

blog of

Alexei Navalny Alexei Anatolievich Navalny ( rus, links=no, Алексей Анатольевич Навальный, , ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ nɐˈvalʲnɨj; born 4 June 1976) is a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption act ...

. Putin's supporters made their own prank video in response, titled "Russia Without Putin – Russia Without a Future". The video plays on the popular "Russia without Putin" chant that was frequently used during the opposition protests in Russia. Days after the video was released it was revealed to be a trailer for the documentary ''A Coup On Russia'', filmed in 2002 and banned in Russia.

References

{{reflist 2012 in Russia Internet memes introduced in 2012 Parodies Viral videos Cultural depictions of Vladimir Putin 2012 YouTube videos

See also

References