Kremlin slams German weekly for calling Putin ‘dog’ in its article

Published time: 13 Sep, 2017

Any insult to the President of Russia is “unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said while responding tAny insult to the President of Russia is “unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said while responding to an article published in Germany’s Focus magazine, in which Vladimir Putin is referred to as “a dog.”

Russia’s presidential spokesman went on to say that such insults ultimately damage the reputation of the media itself, adding the Kremlin does not pay much attention to Focus magazine.

“The fact is that this media outlet is well known for its extreme subjectivity,” and not considered a “noteworthy source,” Peskov said. He added that, in the case of Russia, this subjectivity “is mostly based on extreme Russophobia.”

Moscow’s angry reaction was provoked by an article titled “50 reasons for Merkel/50 reasons against Merkel” published in the magazine issued on September 9.

“Even though she [the German Chancellor Angela Merkel] is afraid of [the Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s dog, she is not afraid of the dog Putin,” reads the offensive part referring to the Russian leader.

The issue was initially raised by the head of press service of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Denis Mikerin. “There are still red lines [that should not be crossed],” he wrote in a post on his Facebook page that featured a photo of the inflammatory piece published in Focus.

“There are things that have nothing to do with the freedom of expression or the media freedom and are by no means tolerable,” the diplomat said in his post, expressing hope that the insult aimed at the Russian president was “nothing more than unfortunate linguistic passage of a journalist.”

He also called on Focus editor-in-chief, Robert Schneider, to apologize for “this apparent fail” of his editorial office.

The Russian embassy in Germany also flagged the issue on its official Twitter account.

“Focus [editors] believe it is provocative. Is it? No. Tasteless and plain stupid? Definitely,” the embassy tweeted, challenging the German government’s spokesman Steffen Seibert to respond to the incident.

However, neither the German government nor Focus magazine responded or offered an apology. Instead, the media outlet said on Twitter there was nothing insulting in its article, just “ironic wordplay.”

“The word “dog” is basically a wordplay, which was intended to be ironic. It means “tough nut.” It was not intended to be derogatory,” the tweet said.

Later Wednesday, Schneider eventually contacted Mikerin to comment on the issue. However, his 'explanation' was similar to the magazine’s earlier statements, restating that the insulting phrase featured in article was nothing but “ironic wordplay.”

"It does not meet our expectations of a normal parity-based, respectful and responsible dialog,” Mikerin responded.

The embassy still regards the whole situation as “an unfortunate incident” that, however, still requires “concrete steps on its settlement, i.e. a formal apology from the Focus editorial office,” Mikerin said in a Facebook post.

https://www.rt.com/news/403247-kremlin-german-focus-putin-dog/