Social media users are poking fun at how Russian President Vladimir Putin wore a pair of earmuffs during a surprise trip to Chechnya this week.
Putin was videoed wearing his earmuffs upside down as he looked on during a shooting drill conducted by Chechen soldiers during his first visit to the republic in nearly 13 years.
The Russian leader met with Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, in Grozny, on Tuesday. He also met with volunteers who are undergoing training to fight in the ongoing war in Ukraine, state-run news agency Tass reported on Wednesday
Images and videos of Putin wearing ear defenders upside down gained traction on social media.
I wonder why Putin (I didn’t even recognize him at first) put the headphones on this way?
To have a beard like Kadyrov does? pic.twitter.com/AKoQKnjan2
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 21, 2024
“Is everybody too scared to tell him that’s not how you wear ear defenders?” one X (formerly Twitter) user wrote.
“I was an officer of a fish & game club for 11 years and also taught firearms courses. I never saw anyone wear headphones this way. It looks like Putin has dementia,” another said.
Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, wrote: “I wonder why Putin (I didn’t even recognize him at first) put the headphones on this way? To have a beard like Kadyrov does?”
“Are you kidding me,” wrote Shaun Pinner, a former British soldier and serving Ukrainian marine.
“Some people will still call him a genius,” another X user wrote, while a someone else suggested that Putin “doesn’t want to mess up his hair.”
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
DMITRY ASTAKHOV/RIA NOVOSTI/AFP/Getty Images
Putin has been photographed on multiple occasions in the past wearing his headphones upside down, including in 2007, during a trip to Russia’s Tuva Republic in southern Siberia.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said in its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Wednesday that Putin’s Chechnya visit was likely “an effort to shift domestic focus away from the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast and posture normalcy and stability.”
The think tank was referring to Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk, which borders Ukraine’s Sumy region, on August 6, which has resulted in tens of thousands of Kursk residents being evacuated from their homes. Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Kyiv’s forces had so far seized control of 1,250 square kilometers (482 square miles) of Russian territory and 92 settlements,
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