RUFFLING SOME FEATHERS

Even the Food Russians Were Served on Flight to Alaska Was a Troll

Moscow’s press corps was given a dish associated with the Ukrainian capital as they flew to cover peace talks.

Russian reporters on their way to Alaska to cover Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Donald Trump were given a provocative serving of food on their flight. Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief for RT [Russia Today], posted on X that the Moscow press corps was given chicken kyiv cutlets as they travelled to the talks. Several Kremlin propagandists expressed joy at the apparent troll move. “Putin and Trump should turn [Volodymyr] Zelensky into a chicken kyiv. There’s no shortage of humor in the Kremlin,” commentator Sergei Markov posted on social media, via The Guardian. The airplane food was not the only non-too-subtle provocation from Russia ahead of the ceasefire talks in Alaska. Putin’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, was seen wearing a shirt reading “CCCP,”—Russian for USSR—when he arrived in Alaska. The shirt was taken as a hint that Russia has no intention of ending its invasion of Ukraine or wider goals. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Trump’s team was also served chicken on Air Force 1 on its way to Anchorage, but served with waffles rather than a kyiv.