World Leader Compares Himself To The Lord Of The Rings’ Sauron
Russian President Vladimir Putin has gifted his council with rings, making him seem like a pseudo-Sauron from Lord of the Rings.
Vladimir Putin has either been watching Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, or doing a highly suggested rewatch or reread of The Lord of the Rings, as the Russian leader has just pulled the most Sauron move possible and forged a set of golden bands. As reported by Deadline, Putin gifted golden rings to eight fellow leaders during a summit between the Commonwealth of Independent States. One for each of the heads, and a final for Putin to rule them all.
Twitter will be Twitter and immediately after the news broke of Vladimir Putin’s golden gesture, users flocked to mock the Russian President and compare him to Sauron. In a tweet, Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, tweeted pictures comparing Putin’s allies and their new jewelry to The Lord of the Rings character Gollum, a creature so obsessed with the power of the ring it changed him from a man to a beast. Meanwhile, Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian Parliamentarian said that Putin was moving from his role of “Hitler of the 21st century” to the evil character in The Lord of the Rings, poking fun at the group’s summit gift.
The rings were a sort of thank you/peace gesture from Putin to the other leaders surrounding his ongoing attack on Ukraine. Attending the meeting and gift exchange were Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakhstan’s President Kassyn-Jomart Tokayev, Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Japarov, Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmon, Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov, and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. With Vladimir Putin’s Sauron-like eye on all the men, only Belarusian leader Alexandra Lukashenko read the room properly and put his ring on immediately.
For those who may not know, Vladimir Putin’s Sauron parallel comes from the classic fantasy book series penned by J.R.R. Tolkien. In them, readers are taken to the fictional land of Middle Earth where a sinister ruler named Sauron has forged nine Rings of Power and handed them out to the leaders of men. Bringing unimaginable amounts of strength and mysticism to those who wear them, the rings are all-powerful – that is except to the one who rules them all.
The ring in question is of course held by Sauron who lords over the juiced-up rulers with merciless darkness that plunges Middle Earth into war, bloodshed, and chaos. The story has gone on to spawn a star-studded film franchise that was even given a prequel story in The Hobbit trilogy, as well as the aforementioned Prime Video series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. As for Vladimir Putin, his rings allegedly contain the phrase “Happy New Year 2023” and “Russia,” making us wish that Sauron would’ve done something similar with his creations – of course replacing “Russia” with “Mordor.”
With the attack on Ukraine still raging, the comparison of Vladimir Putin to Sauron isn’t a hard one to make. With everyone including celebrities stepping up to help join Ukraine’s fight, the country has made progress against what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously referred to as the Empire. Between Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, there are plenty of parallels that we can see playing out between the two countries at this time.
