FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT: Vlad wouldn’t try to fool us, would he? Some folks think so. The Russian president recently (reportedly) visited a military hospital in Moscow to meet wounded soldiers. It was unclear exactly what wounds the two men pictured with Putin had suffered, but they were well enough to stand at attention when he entered their room. Wearing matching blue PJs, they then shook hands with Vlad who was clad in what appeared to be a white lab coat. What caught some peoples’ eye was that one of the wounded warriors looked very much like a guy Putin was pictured with during a previous visit to an industrial facility. Cynics think the entire scene might have been staged. The wounded soldier/factory worker may be just the designated bystander approved for “Putin meets with people” shots. The possible fake photo reminded us of another story, where pictures surfaced of Ronald Reagan in 1988, possibly showing then-KGB officer Vladimir Putin (pretending to be a tourist) among the crowd that greeted the American president during his visit to Red Square.
MORE PUTIN MEDICAL NEWS: The frequently fallacious British tabloid “The Mirror” says a Russian intelligence source (probably not the guy in the blue pajamas) says that Putin has be “given a maximum of three years to live by doctors.” A purported FSB source says Putin “has a severe form of rapidly progressing cancer.” We don’t know but three years doesn’t sound too rapid to us. The Mirror also says that Vlad’s eyesight is failing, and he has to resort to giant cue cards when making public remarks. Late this week, Newsweek got into the game saying "three U.S. intelligence leaders" confirmed to them that a classified U.S. report says Putin recently re-emerged after undergoing treatment in April for advanced cancer." So, maybe there IS some truth to it. Either that, or the officials have been reading the Mirror. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the weekend, denied Vlad’s health was bad, but of course.
TOP GROSSING GUN: There is lots of news to report on the newly released movie “Top Gun: Maverick.” To start with, let’s kick the tires and light the fires with news about the box office. According to the New York Times the movie landed an estimated ticket take of $151 million in North America during its first weekend in theaters. Overseas ticket sales for that same period are expected to match that total. Reviews for the thrilling military epic have been uniformly positive. CNET called it “soaringly silly fun.” When last we checked on Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of critics and 99% of the audience were high on Maverick. As a result of the success, Reuters says that movie company stocks also took off. Whenever a project develops this amount of buzz you can count of lots of people getting in on the fun. The U.S. Air Force is sending recruiters to theaters – despite the fact that the film is about naval aviators – perhaps figuring the viewing public won’t know or care about the difference. Of course, the Navy is trying to score a recruiting bonanza too. And naturally, naysayers are coming out of the woodwork – some decrying that the military tried to reap a recruiting bonanza out of Hollywood, saying that the first Top Gun created an atmosphere that contributed to the ”Tailhook” sexual assault scandal a few years later – others decrying that the Pentagon wanted to assert some control over scripts. People are even scrutinizing the 1986 version of Top Gun with someone asking how one of the characters, a Vietnam era fighter pilot, managed to earn the Antarctic Service Medal and Coast Guard Arctic Service Medal that he wore on his uniform. Our guess – the colors matched the actor’s icy blue eyes. Fortune reports that the Navy charged the filmmakers as much as $11,374 an hour to use F/A-18 Super Hornets for the filming but, although he flew dozens of sorties for the flick, Tom Cruise was not permitted to touch the controls. Maybe if Tom can get an age waiver, he could go see some of those recruiters.
YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET: Meanwhile, the folks at The Intercept are wondering why the CIA’s venture capital outfit, In-Q-Tel, and the military are investing millions of dollars in a Brooklyn, NY firm called “Looking Glass Factory” that makes holographic displays. In-Q-Tel is said to have invested in several companies specializing in virtual reality. We don’t understand much about this stuff – but hope they get all this worked out by the time Hollywood makes a sequel to the Top Gun sequel.
THESE RUSSIAN COLONELS ARE “F’ING” TOAST: Ukrainian intelligence officials kindly provided Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty with intercepted communications between a couple Russian Army colonels in Ukraine. RFE posted a video on YouTube which makes clear that the Russian senior officers were (as the Brits say) “not best pleased” with their chain of command. The conversation is littered with f-bombs. Colonel Vitaly Kovtun refers to Vladimir Putin as an “m-f’er” and Colonel Maksin Vlasov called Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as “an incompetent f’ing layman.” They also discussed General Aleksandr Dvornikov who reportedly had been placed in charge of the overall operation after a disastrous start. In the video Dvonikov is labeled an “f’d up, brainless, f’ing idiot.” Most of the intercepts were recorded in mid-April. One wonders what the colonels are saying now and how understanding their bosses will be when they hear their private chat.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES: Netflix has an animated short (12-minute) horror program streaming called “Kill Team Kill.” It is about Army Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan whose mission goes off the rails. Here is the trailer. Where do they come up with such stuff? According to Task & Purpose, the story was inspired by a former Army infantryman in Afghanistan who was popping pills and in his resulting delirium, began hallucinating about things like robot bears. The former soldier said he was “downing a mix of crushed-up pills ranging from Ambien to Flexeril with a nice Rip It (energy drink) chaser.” Maybe those Russian colonels dropping f-bombs on Putin should claim they were on the same thing.
TOO WOKE? June is Pride Month, with lots of events and activities planned. The folks at Ramstein Air Base in Germany might have gotten a little ahead of their skis, however. According to Air Force Times, Ramstein ended up cancelling a planned kids event dubbed “Drag Queen Story Time” at the base library. Organizers originally were going to have a local drag queen read stories to kids for 30 minutes. Air Force officials said while they continue to support LGBTQ+ events – this one had not been properly vetted before being advertised.
HOW ABOUT A NICE SHEPHERD’S PIE? British cuisine has sometimes been criticized as being considerably not up to the standards of what you might find right across the channel. Well, things are about to get worse according to Russian propaganda. Russian TV outlet TsargradTV claims that the UK is on the verge of cannibalism as a result of the country’s high cost of living – which they say was exacerbated by Britain’s support for Ukraine. The dire prediction was sparked by a misunderstanding of a cheeky joke in The Sunday Times. Jeremy Clarkson wrote that if something isn’t done about the global food crisis, it was only a matter of time before, “people eat their neighbours.” Apparently, the tasteless joke lost a little in the translation.
GOT ANY NEWS WE CAN SINK OUR TEETH INTO? Rumors about your “neighbours” you’d like to bite? Send whatever you can cook up to us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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