Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin
They say of Putin Vladimir Vladimirovitch
That he is the most powerful man on the planet
That he is in the whole world the man who is most rich
With between eighty and two hundred billion net
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When the iron curtain crumpled into dust
And the Soviet Union disintegrated
The whole world prayed and waited for the gust
Of fresh air to cool tempers as choler abated
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There was high hope of a massive peace dividend
That canons would melt away into ploughshares
That starvation and poverty on earth would end
That serenity would emerge from the nightmares
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The blame for that couldn’t all be laid at Kremlin’s door
Like sumo wrestlers East and West stared at each other
And kept staring but neither blinked in awe
Clearly neither was gonna be the first sheather
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After the long years of Stalinist repression
Democracy in a coma freedom curtailed
The press muzzled overseas travel banned the Russian
Conceded that communism had badly failed
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When Putin took the helm he saw that above all
What Russia needed was its erstwhile pride
He wasn’t gonna be at the West’s beck and call
He’ll do everything to keep the people on side
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He’d have to harness Russian nationalism
And the power of the orthodox church
A time bomb was dissent and criticism
But this he knew how to deal without research
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With his background in security he knew to a t
How to tackle opposition to stifle its voice
Use violence when it becomes a necessity
When there is no alternative no other choice
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He had worked with good men who had the wherewithals
To silence critics, and disappear dissidents
And who he knew would be to him forever enthralled
And they would operate on all the continents
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With the power he would have to make appointments
He would place key allies in the judiciary
Who would helpfully dish out custodial punishments
With the nation a grateful beneficiary
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He keeps a good grip on former republics
And the Aliyevs and Lukashenkos
Like trained puppies will wag their tails and do tricks
And each of them knows what to him he owes
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For those who spurn his overtures like the Ukraine
Which earns good revenue delivering Russian gas
He has the strategies to inflict severe pain
Starting with the insurrection in the Donbas
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The Crimean problem was a gift from the gods
All it needed was an illegal referendum
Everybody knew beforehand what were the odds
He annexed Crimea_ an obvious outcome
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He has crushed Chechnya and Ramzan Kadyrov
Was anointed satrap with the proviso that
He had men and Russian weapons enough
To pluck out Putin’s thorns at the drop of a hat
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Anna Politovskaya was a prized quarry
On the trail of the Putin-Kadyrov dark schemes
This journalist had to be dealt with in a hurry
Before she got hold of and spilled too many beans
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Another trophy was Nemtsov’s head on a plate
Once a vice prime minister of the federation
Of Putin’s many enemies he knew the fate
So Kadyrov had to take appropriate action
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When Mikhail Khodorovsky who used dubious means
To become Russia’s best-known and richest oligarch
Had about Putin’s own corruption spilled the beans
Putin’s courts ordered him to be fed to the sharks
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The Brits never sent agents to kill Burgess and Philby
Condemned already to a life without fish and chips
And life in a laugh a minute Moscow, let them be!
In this life they’ll never be asked to be third slips
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Putin is a man who demands his pound of flesh
Renegades and sell-outs will never be free
Wherever they hide, one needs not be a Ganesh
To divine that he’ll get them, there’s nowhere to flea
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Litvinenko knew where Putin’s dead bodies were hid
And heeded not friendly advice about keeping mum
Andre Lugovoy flew in from Moscow to rid
Putin of his foe with a cup of … polonium
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In a plot straight out of Alfred Hitchcock
Putin’s men found ex-double agent Sergei Skripal
In an English town and filled him with novichok
To punish him for past treachery et al
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Alexei Navalny ís Putin’s bête noire
He has oft accused him of crimes and corruption
And Vlad’s response? We’ll get you wherever you are
And ram up your throat your baseless accusation
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Navalny was fully aware that a certain
Konstantin Kudryavstev had been tailing him
For a good few years and it was more than plain
That he was preparing to make him his next victim
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He decided to put his conjecture to the test
And arranged a telephone call to the man
To confirm it and put his troubled mind to rest
With his allies they elaborated a plan
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They used their advanced technological know how
To mimic a call from his FSB handler
For an important debriefing pow wow
Where he denied that he’d been a stupid bungler
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He had daubed as ordered, the smalls of the target
In his hotel room with the novichok provided
But the unforeseen landing in Omsk was kismet
The FSB planned but ’twas fate that decided
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I did not put a foot wrong Konstantin swore
If the flight had taken more than forty minutes
Dead and gone would have been that son of a whore
In our work comrade there are more misses than hits
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Putin first said that the recorded call was fake
And could not have been done without the CIA
Navalny’s now in jail and he will do what it takes
To ensure that from plotters he be kept away
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Putin’s fight ‘gainst democracy isn’t confined
To Russia, his friends include Modi’s India, Syria
Doing all he can to win over the non-aligned
Including fighting their wars and gassing non-Shia
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Putin helps Assad kill his Syrian enemies
As assiduously as the West helps Bin Salman
Destroy their villages and starve hapless Yemenis
They do these things ruthlessly because they can
