It’s political fowl play!
Russian reporters on a state-chartered plane from Russia to Alaska to cover Vladimir Putin’s summit with Donald Trump were served a meal of chicken kyiv — in a possible troll targeting Ukraine.
Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of Russia Today, said members of the Russian press corps were given the breaded cutlets — a dish named after Ukraine’s capital — on a jet headed to Anchorage for Friday’s cease-fire talks.
“Our journalists, who flew to Alaska on a special flight, were served chicken Kyiv cutlets on the plane,” wrote Simonyan, who edits the state-run English language channel, on X.
The grub prompted some squawking from critics of Russia, who called it a burn that goes beyond the food world.
But “Putin and Trump should turn [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky into a chicken kyiv,” Kremlin propagandist Sergei Markov reportedly wrote on social media.
“There’s no shortage of humor in the Kremlin.”
Egor Piskunov, a reporter for the Russian state-run RT outlet who was on the plane, dubbed the dish “a good sign for the upcoming negotiations” between Putin and Trump, according to an X post.
It was unclear if the meal, which is often served on Russian airlines because it’s easy to freeze, was actually meant to be political provocation.
The chicken dish, which is usually stuffed with herbs and butter, likely evolved from the “cutlet de volaille Kiev-style” served at the Continental hotel in Kiev.
