Russian air cadets in trouble after scantily clad twerking video goes viral
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
Russian air cadets have landed in hot water after a video of them twerking with each other in underwear and military caps went viral.
More than a dozen pilots-in-training feature in the two-minute video, which is set to Benny Benassi’s 2002 hit song Satisfaction.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
The performance seems to be a tribute to the video for Satisfaction, with the scantily clad men dancing suggestively in their underwear and what appears to be BDSM-style straps.
They eat bananas and hold power drills, hammers and each other while thrusting along to the music.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
The recruits who have danced their way to internet stardom did so at the Ulyanovsk Institute of Civil Aviation, a government-owned institution in the western city of Ulyanovsk.
It also happens to be the oldest school which trains civil pilots in the country, having done so for more than 80 years.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
Petr Timofeev, the head of campus administration at UIGA, told local publication 73online: “I honestly do not want to comment on the disgusting behaviour of these cadets.
“To be honest, I myself need to sit and digest what I’ve seen.
“We are now dealing with this case; we are trying to evaluate everything inside and outside the school. Of course, all of this is very ugly.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
“I have been working here for more than 20 years, and this is the first time I have seen anything like this,” he added.
“It’s so offensive.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
“We have invested so much in these people, and this is how they behave.”
The video is a slap in the face for the Russian government, who in 2013 passed a law banning gay “propaganda”.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
Last year, it was found that hate crimes against LGBT people have doubled since the law was enacted.
The legislation, which prohibits “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” towards minors, has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
The European judges found that the law “reinforced stigma and prejudice and encouraged homophobia”.
The law also bans people from sharing “distorted ideas about the equal social value of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships”.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
It has been widely abused by Vladimir Putin’s government to clamp down on the LGBT rights movement as a whole.
So the fact that anyone is broadcasting a direct rebellion against an outrageously discriminative law of this kind is pretty encouraging.
(YouTube/Aleks Jigurdinski)
Especially as a study this week discovered that 83 percent of Russians think that gay sex is “reprehensible”.
The country has taken a distinct turn against LGBT rights in the past decade, with Vladimir Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church and nationalist vigilantes forming an ‘unholy trinity’ of oppression for gay people.
Watch the cadets’ full video here:
