Georgia fans took a stand against the Russian president on live television (Picture Match TV; e2w news)
The devil may work hard, but Vladimir Putin’s cyber gulag works even harder.
‘Putin is a d**khead’ – this is the slogan everyone in Russia watching the Euro2024 heard during the match between Turkey and Georgia.
The chant echoed through the stadium speakers in Germany, making it one of the most overt criticisms of the president on Russian television since the start of his war in Ukraine.
Fans from Georgia – a nation that lost about 20% of its territory to Russia – loudly chorused in Russian around the 38th minute of their team’s game on Tuesday.
It was shown live by Match TV, owned by the Kremlin-obedient Gazprom-Media giant.
It was heard live by viewers but in recordings on the channel it was removed and replaced with general crowd noise.
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Independent Russian journalist Ilya Shepelin poked fun of the censorship in the game won 3-1 by Turkey.
‘Here you go – Match TV removed chants about Putin from the Turkey-Georgia match from the recording of the European Championship broadcast,’ he posted.
‘A subscriber sent me the live broadcast video…
‘Fans are chanting the old football chorus of Kharkiv [Ukrainian] fans about Putin.’
It is understood Georgia’s fans were expressing solidarity with Ukraine, but also standing against their own government’s strengthening relations with the Kremlin.
Russia has gradually been tightening its grip on the former Soviet nation, trying to prevent it from joining the European Union.
Propagandist Tina Kandelaki, who was born in Soviet-era Georgia and is now deputy head of Gazprom-Media which owns the channel, raged against the fans for ‘insulting’ the Kremlin dictator.
She hit out at the ‘gross provocation’ from fans from Georgia, but it is unclear if she ordered the censorship.
The chant was ‘dirty and vulgar;’ said Kondelaki who was earlier in direct charge of Match TV.
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