Russian media cooks up a Putin burger at New York restaurant, but it smells like fake news
‘Our restaurant has never celebrated Vladimir Putin’s birthday in any way, shape or form and has never offered a Putin burger’
A hamburger is not the sort of thing you would expect to spark an international disagreement.
But the apparent creation of a special birthday burger for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has dragged a New York restaurant into an argument over what critics say is fake news from the Kremlin.
Russian state media reported over the weekend that Lucy’s Cantina Royale had produced a special spicy burger in honour of Putin’s 65th birthday on Saturday.
It was a shining example of how Putin is adored across the world, said Channel One, the Kremlin’s flagship television channel. “It’s not only foreign leaders that are wishing Russia’s president a happy birthday, but ordinary citizens too, and, what is more, in extremely original ways,” a presenter gushed.
A waitress at Lucy’s, a Mexican restaurant near Penn Station in New York, told Russian state media that the five-patty burger, served with chips, sauce and salad, weighed exactly 1,952 grams, a reference to the year Putin was born in Leningrad.
“We believe that Vladimir Vladimirovich is an outstanding politician and a historical figure, and so we decided to devote one day a year to him,” said a barmaid, identified variously as Tamara, Tatiana or Darya by various Russian media outlets. The video was produced by Ruptly, a company owned by RT, the Kremlin-backed television channel.