Butt out, Vlad!
Russian immigrants lashed out Thursday at Vladimir Putin over his New York Times op-ed urging the United States to avoid military action against Syria for last month’s horrific poison-gas attack.
Comedian Yakov Smirnoff, famed for his “America — what a country!” routine during the 1980s, said the Russian president and former KGB chief is the last person to be giving the U.S. advice on foreign policy.
“Putin is a prodigy of the KGB, and KGB stands for ‘kiss your butt good-bye,’ so I don’t know if that’s the right person we should listen to,” Smirnoff said.
In Brighton Beach, residents warned America not to believe Putin’s claim that he wants the world “to stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.”
“You cannot trust anything he says. He has three, four, five faces — it depends on the day of the week,” said Phil Z., 63, who works in the medical field.
“I left Russia because I could not get a job and I had two young children. There’s no life over there and it’s worse and worse. People cannot afford to retire, people are hungry and angry.”
“Stop 500 people and everyone will say: Don’t trust this man,” he added.
Bella Blinder, 55, who emigrated from Odessa, said, “if he wants peace, why did he send ships to Syria? Why did he send chemical weapons and regular weapons?”
“I’m living 38 years in the U.S. and I know Putin is the Number One enemy of the U.S. Not only him but his whole team. They hate the U.S.,” she said.
“I left because I was Jewish, but nobody in my family could celebrate holidays, or the KGB would put you in the crazy house.”
Diamond District worker Michael Rubin, 62, called Putin a “liar” and said “he should stay out of American affairs.”
“Right now, Putin is playing (President) Obama like a fiddle,” he said.
“Putin is from the old communist society, and the old ones try to get their hands all over everything. It’s not his business.”
Rubin, originally from Uzbekistan, added: “I’m Russian-born, but I’m an American.”
“We kicked their ass during the Cold War. We’ll kick their ass again if they try to tell us how to run our government or our lives,” he said.