A 70-year-old Russian woman has been fined 40,000 rubles ($490) for describing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “handsome”.
Olga Slegina was officially fined last Tuesday in a Moscow court for referring to Zelensky as “a handsome young man” late last year.
Slegina was overheard speaking with another woman at a medical center in the city of Nalchik when she described the president as “smoking hot”.
She also said the president, who once worked as a comedian, had a “good sense of humor”.
Three people reported her to local authorities. She was arrested for breaking a censorship law implemented by the Russian government in light of its ongoing war with Ukraine.
The court found Slegina in violation of Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses which allows the courts to fine “natural persons and juridical persons for a ‘discrediting’ of Russian Armed Forces and its operations”.
The arresting officer told the woman that she had “no right” to complement Zelensky because he is “our enemy”.
Zelensky became an unlikely sex symbol after Russa invaded Ukraine last spring.
Since then, photos of the former actor showing him working the front line with his country’s troops went viral.
One TikToker groupie posted, “Y’all, I got one thing to say. President Zelensky- daddy. All these little boys out here like, ‘Call me daddy! Um, no. Prove it. President Zelensky? Daddy.”
Czech designer Thomas Brinek decided to play on the trend by printing the Ukrainian president’s face on pillows.
“Many people, mostly of the fairer sex, see him as some kind of a sex symbol, so I got the idea to make a pillow which would look like he is actually in their bed,” Brinek told the media.
The pillows were a hit with the first batch of 2000 selling out after orders came in from around the world.
Most admirers are saddened to know that the president is taken. He has been married to his wife Olena since 2003 and has two children.