International Media Focus On Putin’s Tractor On Occasion of His 70th Birthday

He received birthday calls from a list of world leaders — including from Cuba, Turkey, South Africa, Kyrgyyzstan and Kazakhstan By New York Times And BBC The president of Belarus gave him a tractor. Tajikistan’s leader presented him with a pile of watermelons. And Ukrainians bestowed a birthday wish on Vladimir V. Putin of Russia: that it would be his last. President Putin, whose private life is shrouded in secrecy, spent his 70th birthday with little public celebration, meeting with leaders from Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan — in St. Petersburg, where he was was born, for an “informal summit” of post-Soviet countries. He received calls from a noticeably short list of world leaders — including from Cuba, Turkey, South Africa, Kyrgyyzstan and Kazakhstan. In Ukraine, his birthday was broadly met with condemnation of him. The Nobel Peace Prize committee, in a pointed message to Mr Putin, gave its award to human rights activists from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Countless memes denounced the Russian president.