The newly published calendars for the year 2019 have just hit the shelves and are offering buyers 12 months with Vladimir Putin, who’s featured cuddling up with a pooch and a baby leopard, casually riding a horse in winter, arm-wrestling with women, posing with guns, as well as taking an icy plunge on Orthodox Epiphany.
According to CNN’s Senior International Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen, who did a report on the new calendar, it was “designed to show Russians that they have a strong leader who’s in control, but also that Putin is a compassionate man and a man of the people, a usually pretty well-selling item.”
Judging by the buzz on social media, the Putin calendar is about to sell like hot cakes:
In the meantime, a recent poll by the US Pew Research Center revealed that Putin enjoys greater trust of the international community than Donald Trump: while the Russian president is trusted by 30 percent of respondents, his US counterpart is lagging slightly behind, with 27 percent. At the same time, the poll highlighted that some 81 percent of Russians approved of Putin’s actions on the international arena.