Getty Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Donald Trump as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize this year, Russian outlets reported on Thursday, September 24.
NTV, an independent television news service reported the nomination on Twitter and TASS news service soon confirmed it.
A presidential spokesman told TASS that the Kremlin did not nominate Putin, and the nomination appears to have been sent by a Russian writer, about whom little seems to be known in the United States.
Putin’s nomination follows Trump’s similarly controversial nod by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a far-right member of the Norwegian parliament.
Writer Sergey Komkov Nominated Putin for the Prize & Announced it at a News Conference
Facebook/Sergey KomkovWriter Sergey Komkov
Writer Sergey Komkov is the editor and chief at a political newspaper which translates to “President” in English, as well as a member of the Moscow Writer’s Union, according to his Facebook page.
The International Political Economy Club described Komkov as a “writer and academician” and reported that at a news conference, he told reporters, “It was sent on September 9, and on September 10, the Nobel Committee Headquarters in Oslo received it.”
Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov also told TASS that it was Komkov, not the Kremlin, which submitted the nomination.
“You all know that completely different people are nominated for this award,” Peskov said. “This is an initiative of those submitting the nomination. In this case, [the nomination was submitted by] the aforementioned writer … If this decision is made, great. If not, it’s no problem as well.”
Komkov has not publicly given his rationale for nominating Putin as of yet.
Putin’s Nomination Comes As He Faces International Scrutiny Over the Poisoning of Activist Alexei Navalny
Twitter/Alexei NavalnyAlexei Navalny
High-profile Putin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a nerve agent on August 20 while on a flight between Siberia and Moscow, and he remained in a coma until about two weeks ago, the Moscow Times reported.
Navalny has alleged that he was poisoned on the orders of Putin, a notoriously hardline authoritarian under whose presidency numerous opposition leaders have met suspicious deaths, per a Washington Post list.
The poisoning, which has captured international attention, as well as the litany of state violence widely attributed to Putin, is likely to raise eyebrows over Putin’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
That must be because he uses novitsjok instead of cyanide, so much more humane.
Earlier this week, Putin repeatedly denied involvement during a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, and even went so far as to suggest Navalny may have poisoned himself, Le Monde reported.
Navalny mocked Putin’s reported comments in an Instagram post on Wednesday.
Good version. I think that it deserves the closest study. I cooked [the nerve agent] in the kitchen. [I] took a soft sip from a flask on the plane. I fell into a coma. Prior to that, I agreed with my wife, friends and colleagues that if the Ministry of Health insists that they take me to Germany for treatment, they would not allow it to be done.
To die in an Omsk hospital and end up in an Omsk morgue, where the cause of death would be established … [I] “had lived enough” — that was the ultimate goal of my cunning plan. But Putin outplayed me. He just can’t be fooled. As a result, I, like a fool, lay in a coma for 18 days, but did not achieve my goal. The provocation failed!
A representative of the Nobel Committee declined to comment on Putin’s reported nomination, pointing to the committee’s longstanding statutes: The list of nominees is never made public until 50 years after the prize is awarded, and the committee does not confirm or unconfirm nominees.
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