Vladimir Putin Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize…Seriously

Well. Well. Fucking well. Someone somewhere in some state of mind thinks Vladimir Putin is making the world a happier, safer place, having nominated Russia’s anti-gay, anti-Chechnya, anti-Georgia, anti-shirt president for a Nobel Peace Prize. Wait, what day is it? Did April Fool’s sneak up on us again?

“Being the leader of one of the leading nations of the world, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin makes efforts to maintain peace and tranquillity not only on the territory of his own country but also actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet,” wrote officially-sanctioned Nobel Prize nominators, the International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World (invoking Putin’s middle name no less).

The Russian (shock!) advocacy group said at a press conference Tuesday that Putin is far more deserving of the prize than Barack Obama, who won the prize in 2009, because he opposes military intervention in Syria — they of course neglected to mention that Putin’s been supplying weapons to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who’s systematically killing his own people — but you know, details.

“Barack Obama has the title of Nobel Prize winner — the man who initiated and approved such aggressive actions on the part of the United States of America as in Iraq, Afghanistan, some others, and now is preparing for invasion of Syria,” said Iosif Kobzon, a popular Russian singer and a member of Parliament at the press conference. “I think our president, who is trying to stop the bloodshed, who is trying to help to resolve this conflict situation through a political dialogue, through diplomatic language, deserves this title more.”

In all fairness, Obama inherited Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are certainly other people more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize — especially since O won that a bit, shall we say, prematurely. Meanwhile, Putin’s been hard at work making people’s lives miserable for over a decade.

Aside from his international indiscretions — of which there are many — Vladimirovich hasn’t been promoting much peace within his own borders, at least not when it comes to the LGBT citizens of Russia. He signed a law this summer banning “propaganda” of so-called “non-traditional sexual relations” among children and another banning foreign adoption of Russian orphans from countries where same-sex marriage is legal. As a result, this institutionalized homophobia has been linked to notorious acts of kidnapping, torture and even murder.

In Putin’s peaceful mind, however, that’s not the stuff of discrimination. He even “sometimes” awards them “with state prizes or decorations for their achievements in various fields.” Well in that case, forget the Nobel Peace Prize and bump this man up to sainthood. They’re apparently giving those out to anyone these days.