Vladimir Putin just said he doesn’t make mistakes because he’s not a woman
Vladimir Putin has provoked outrage after saying that he doesn’t make mistakes or have bad days as President because he’s not a woman.
In an interview with film director Oliver Stone, the Russian President said that as a man he is not forced to deal with “natural cycles”, making him a more powerful leader.
“I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days,” he told Stone during a tour of the Kremlin.
“I am not trying to insult anyone. That’s just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles.”
Stone, who recently directed the film Snowden, was given extensive access to the secretive Russian leader between 2015 and 2017, for his documentary ‘The Putin Interviews’.
Putin has been criticised for sexism in the past.
In 2016, Putin responded to Hillary Clinton comparing him to Hitler by saying, “It’s best not to argue with women”.
Putin also attracted controversy in 2006, when he reportedly joked that President Moshe Katsav of Israel was a “mighty man” following allegations that he raped several members of his staff.
A Russian journalist told the BBC that he overheard the Russian President joking: “What a mighty man he turns out to be! He raped 10 women — I would never have expected this from him.
“He surprised us all — we all envy him.”
A Kremlin spokesperson later admitted that the words were indeed “pronounced” by Putin, but insisted that the Russian President’s joke had partly been lost in translation.
“Russian is a very complicated language,” the Kremlin told the BBC, “sometimes it is very sensitive from the point of view of phrasing.
“I don’t think that the proper translation is able to reflect the meaning of the joke.”
The first two-hour installment of Stone’s documentary will air on US channel Showtime on June 12th.
The documentary follows on from Putin’s appearance this week on NBC News’ Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly,
Kelly, a former Fox News anchor, interviewed the Russian President amid mounting controversy over the Donald Trump administration’s alleged involvement in Kremlin meddling during the 2016 presidential elections.
