Vladimir Putin Unaware ‘House of Cards’ Features Russian President

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Kremlin officials haven’t watched the new season of House of Cards, which features a fictional Russian president who bares a striking a resemblance to Putin.

“We haven’t watched it or told [Putin] about it,” Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told the Russian News Service. “We haven’t heard about the use of his image.”

House of Cards’ third season has attracted a substantial interest among Russian viewers since its release last month on the popular online platform Amdiateka.

Several episodes of the season feature fictitious Russian president Viktor Petrov (Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen), who fans have noted looks like Putin. But House of Cards creator Beau Willimon has downplayed the comparisons to the real Russian president, telling The Daily Beast there are parallels, but that the show did not limit itself to imitating Putin

“But sure, you could find things in Victor Petrov that you could say are similar to Putin, but I think there are also elements in him that are different,” Willimon said.

The season also featured Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, members of the punk band Pussy Riot, playing themselves. The two women spent almost two years in jail for Pussy Riot’s anti-Putin “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Savior cathedral in February 2012.

In House of Cards, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina are invited to a dinner with President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and his Russian counterpart during the latter’s visit to the United States. Things do not turn out well.

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