It was a late-night tweet that shook the Russian internet – did President Dmitry Medvedev really retweet a post implying jailed opposition activist Alexey Navalny was a “cocksucking sheep”?
According to the Kremlin, he did not. Russian internet users are not so sure. The tweet came hours after riot police and pro-Kremlin youth activists put down a second protest against disputed parliamentary election results and Vladimir Putin‘s rule.
“Today it became clear that a person who writes in their blog the words ‘party of crooks and thieves’ is a stupid, c*cksucking sheep :),” said the tweet, written by Konstantin Rykov, a media-savvy Duma deputy. It was a clear reference to Navalny, who coined the popular phrase “party of crooks and thieves”, disparaging Putin’s United Russia. A short clip of Navalny yelling the “cocksucking sheep” insult at a first protest against Putin’s rule on Monday had already gone viral.
Medvedev’s official Twitter account promptly retweeted Rykov’s note, sending the Russian blogosphere into a frenzy. It was quickly deleted – but caches of the act spread far and wide.
The Kremlin was forced to admit the retweet . “Tonight an incorrect retweet of an entry appeared on Dmitry Medvedev’s Twitter account,” the Kremlin press office said. “A check revealed that during a routine password change, an employee in charge of technical support for the account made an inadmissible interference in @MedvedevRussia’s feed. The guilty will be punished,” it warned.
Liberal Russians took it as a sign that whoever it was that retweeted the remarks intended to make Medvedev look foolish, showing that opposition also existed within the Kremlin.
“Dear Kremlin! You just admitted that our people also exist in the Kremlin. Thank you,” tweeted Andrew Ryvkin, a user in St Petersburg, with a link to the statement.