The series, however, is unlikely to be the mere brainchild of Russian creatives with an interest in global politics.
A trove of documents known as the Kremlin Leaks and obtained by independent journalists has shown links between Russia’s presidential administration and a number of movie and TV projects designed to bring the Kremlin’s talking points into the public’s homes under the guise of entertainment.
In March, for example, Russian state television launched a fictionalized series feeding Russians an alternative version of Ukraine’s 2013-14 Maidan revolution, which the Kremlin describes as a U.S.-sponsored coup d’etat in an attempt to justify its own full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.
According to the Russian TV makers’ plot, Biden loses his passport on his first day in Russia (inadvertently suggesting the president might not want to stick around otherwise) and be forced to live in an ordinary Russian apartment block and teach English to make enough money to go home. A “real Russian patriot” helps him on the way.
Biden will be played by Dmitry Dyuzhev, a well-known Russian actor who, in the press release, said he saw the role as an opportunity to “branch out,” and described the project as “a brave experiment.”