Mick Hartley

From the Times:

Teachers in Russia have been mocked after being fooled into posing for photos in tinfoil hats by a prankster who claimed they would protect them from a “malicious” Nato plot.

The teachers in the Voronezh region all received messages purporting to be from President Putin’s ruling party urging them to make “Helmets of the Fatherland”.

The letters were actually sent by Vladislav Bokhan, an exiled Belarusian blogger who opposes the Kremlin. He told the teachers that the tinfoil hats would provide protection against Nato satellites that were trying to “irradiate the Russian people physically and biologically”

Bokhan included detailed instructions on how to make the hats and decorate them with the Russian flag.

Bokhan said that the willingness of a number of schools in the region to comply with the absurd orders was an indication of the strength of Kremlin propaganda and “another sign of fascism”. Tinfoil hats are typically associated with conspiracy theories and paranoia.

The teachers were also told to provide photos and videos to prove that they had followed the instructions.

Some of the teachers posed for photos in the hats next to a portrait of Putin. “Making tinfoil hats is not only an interesting and creative activity but also an important patriotic act, symbolising a readiness to defend one’s homeland from foreign threats,” one teacher said.