Evolutsia.Net

Inge Snip
Kiev, Ukraine

Picture of Russia! Magazine http://readrussia.com/blog/art/00260/

Well, we all know how Vlad likes to portray his opponents. While visiting Ukraine’s Crimea, his BFF ['best friend forever'], Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, we should not be surprised about how he made jokes about Saakashvili’s tie eating last year. Or, as blogger Ukrainiana put it:

Asked about Yushchenko and Saakashvili — and their pilgrimage to the Holodomor Memorial in Kyiv — Putin paraded his sense of Berlusconi 2.0 humor.

At the conference in Yalte, according to the Telegraph, Putin made the following reference:

Asked at a news conference in Yalta about Saakashvili’s visit to Kiev last week, the Russian leader, who is known for his sharp tongue, said that the Georgian leader and Ukraine’s fiercely pro-Western president, Vikor Yuschenko, should meet wearing open-necked shirts.

“The two presidents would be better off holding a dinner – if they are to hold it – without ties. Ties are pricey these days….Well, you understand what I mean,”

It seems international politics is lowering itself to these kind of jabs, since BFF Timoshenko, who by all means is an appalling populist, played along. Probably trying to be loved by big bully neighbour Russia:

Tymoshenko sought to play along, quipping: “I would definitely [do it] without ties.”

The Ukrainian presidential elections are only two months away, and with the rivalry between Timoshenko and Yushenko is already in full swing, I wonder what they will do to each other when the elections will be only two weeks away…

Luckily Putin always knows how to stir things up.

However, as President Saakashvili said (and, I must admit 1-0 for Misha):

“But when the King of such a huge country… with its million of problems, whose economy, unlike of ours, is collapsing, has nothing to talk about but of a tie of [the President] of a neighboring, small state, whose territory’s 20% it [Russia] has occupied, it already means that we have succeeded,”