29 July 2023 , 09:00
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Despite a long list of war crimes and an arrest warrant from the Hague, Vladimir Putin still has a few fans knocking around.
A Guinean displomat this week expressed his "love" for the Russian tyrant during a summit in St Petersburg in which he wore a shirt emblazoned with the despot's grimacing visage.Russian media reported the diplomat as being Lama Jacques Sevoba, who works at Guinea's embassy in Moscow. He topped off the outfit with a Russian field service cap with a hammer and sickle badge pinned to it.
Mr Sevoba said that the outfit wasn't bought especially for the summit and that he actually got it a number of years ago, wearing it "any time" and "any place" he chooses. Speaking to the DD Geopolitics Telegram channel, Mr Sevoba explained: “I’ve had it for three years already because I love him very much, so I wear it any time, in any place.
“And today it’s to show my people that Russia and Africa will be even bigger friends than before.”
The summit is a glaring attempt from Putin to try to bolster support among African leaders - the only continent where some nations have publicly expressed support since the start of his ongoing, brutal war in Ukraine. In Russia, the Moscow Times called Mr Sevoba's "wardrobe choice" a "not-so-subtle" move amid the despot's charm offensive.
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During the conference, Putin quoted pan-African political legends like Nelson Mandela and Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's former president. He also mentioned Patrice Lumumba, the independence leader of the Congo who was assassinated. It comes amid a global food crisis following Russia's withdrawl from the Black Sea export deal. Putin has now vowed to provide six nations, not including Guinea, with free grain.
Putin's charm offensive may not be going as well as he'd hoped as just 17 heads of state, less than half of the 43 who attended a similar conference in 2019.
One of Putin's more high-profile fans is the similarly tyrannical North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, who even has a bizarre giant portrait of the man hanging on the wall of his plush state office building. In photographs shared by the Hermit Kingdom's state media apparatus, Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu was seen being given a personal tour of Kim's office.
Shoigu was in North Korea for its huge military parade marking a major North Korean war anniversary. It was also attended by Chinese ruling party official Li Hongzhong. The group of fiendish men saluted as North Korean troops marched by and weapons rolled on vehicles. Edited footage from North Korean state TV showed streets and stands packed with tens of thousands of mobilised spectators, who roared in approval as tanks and gargantuan intercontinental ballistic missiles wheeled out on launcher trucks filled up the main road.