Russian TV pulls Ukrainian president’s sitcom
A Russian television channel has abruptly stopped airing the sitcom that launched the political career of Ukraine’s president, after viewers noticed it had edited out an obscene joke about Vladimir Putin from the first episode. The TNT channel, part of the media arm of Gazprom, raised eyebrows when it announced it would air “Servant of the People”, whose star Volodymyr Zelenskiy, playing a schoolteacher who becomes president, went on to win Ukraine’s presidency in real life this year. TNT began airing the series on Wednesday, but the Russian-language service of the BBC noted it had edited out a play on words about Putin and an expensive make of Swiss watch, Hublot, which sounds like an obscenity in Russian.
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