However, it is unlikely that the series is just the brainchild of Russian creatives interested in world politics.
A trove of documents known as the “Kremlin Leaks,” obtained by independent journalists, reveal links between the Russian presidential administration and a number of film and television projects aimed at bringing the Kremlin’s political views into the public’s living rooms under the guise of entertainment.
In March, for example, Russian state television broadcast a fictional series that presented Russians with an alternative version of Ukraine’s 2013-2014 Maidan revolution, which the Kremlin describes as a US-sponsored coup to justify its own large-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.
According to the plot of the Russian TV producers, Biden loses his passport on his first day in Russia (unwittingly suggesting that the president might not want to stay in the city otherwise) and is forced to live in an ordinary Russian apartment block and teach English to earn enough money to go home. A “real Russian patriot” helps him.
Biden is played by Dmitry Dyushev, a well-known Russian actor who said in the press release that he saw the role as an opportunity to “develop further” and called the project “a bold experiment.”
