Man fined $471 for calling Putin a “fantastical f***head”

Yuri Kartyzhev (34) of Novgorod, Russia, was fined for hurting President Putin's feelings after he referred to the country's leader as a "fantastical fuckhead." He was the first person to be charged under a new law that forbids people from saying anything "disrespectful" about government officials.

From The Independent:

By Wednesday afternoon, a tweet introducing the #Putinisafantasticalf***head hashtag was trending, with over 5,000 engagements. As some pointed out, its 2,400 retweets amounted to a potential 870,000 in fines.

The collective Russian internet's quicker wits said they were interested to know where Kartyzhev had gone wrong: perhaps Putin was not a fantastical f***head, but a real one?

Leonid Volkov, a prominent aide to opposition leader Alexei Navalny, led the charge on Twitter: "If the phrase fantastical f***head is offensive, how can we say it without offending government?," he wrote.

Image: Kremlin