‘Voodoo Maidan’ dolls let activists stick needles in Obama

Anti-Maidan activists in Perm are releasing a line of “Voodoo Maidan” dolls that come bundled with five needles and a series of stickers depicting the faces of US officials Barack Obama, John McCain, John Kerry, and Victoria Nuland, and Ukrainian officials Petro Poroshenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and Alexander Turchinov.

The “voodoo dolls” are the work of Alina Lvova, the chief editor of local television station Ural-Inform TV, along with several Perm Anti-Maidan activists. They plan to sell the dolls on the Internet for 1,000 rubles (about $17), donating all proceeds to relief efforts in eastern Ukraine. 

“We’re all easygoing people. All this joking around—this whole game—it’s an attempt to show politicians who stirred up all this… It’s clear that everything that’s happened in Ukraine, all the victims on both sides, it’s not funny at all. It’s an enormous tragedy. But what’s happening now, the way the situation is developing, now that’s a real circus,” said Alina Lvova.

On February 21, the Anti-Maidan movement held a mass demonstration in downtown Moscow. Alexander Borodin, one of the Perm activists, described his contribution to the rally: “We took a dummy, and labeled him ‘Maidan.’ Then we slit him open and stuffed him full of American flags, fake dollar bills, and photographs of children killed in Novorossiya [eastern Ukraine]. It was a success, and lots of people wrote about this spectacle.”

The Anti-Maidan movement was founded in January 2015 by representatives of The Combat Brotherhood, the biker group The Night Wolves, and other organizations calling themselves “patriotic.” The movement’s main goal is preventing an “orange revolution” in Russia. Supporters have vowed to attend all demonstrations by the liberal opposition, in order to interfere with any protest.

See also: 'Russia’s pissed off patriots' Meduza reports from the Anti-Maidan march in Moscow