Chocolate cathedrals and the art of chekist humor

Last Thursday, the Kremlin’s primary propaganda news outlet, RT, sent out a gift to critics of President Vladimir Putin — a chocolate replica of Salisbury Cathedral. It is a gift with meaning — a crystallized (or chocolate-ized) example of chekist humor. That is to say, Russian intelligence gallows humor.

The chocolate cathedral, of course, is a reference to the GRU chemical weapons attack last year that killed one Briton and seriously injured four others in Salisbury, England. That attack targeted a Russian defector, Sergei Skripal, but killed an innocent person who later found the GRU’s discarded nerve agent container (disguised as a perfume bottle).

After the British government forensically proved the GRU’s culpability, the chekists responded with a predictable but absurd denial of responsibility. This involved the two attackers saying that they visited Salisbury not to murder Mr. Skripal, but rather to see Salisbury’s famous cathedral.

It was vintage chekist humor: a lie deliberately designed to aggravate the adversary (in this case, Britain) by playing off its own history and culture. The chocolate cathedral is a natural extension of that humor. By sending the gift to various Putin critics, the chekists send a very thinly veiled threat. In doing so, they aim to intimidate others while amusing themselves. It’s chekist rule 101: a reflex towards decisive action, even at the expense of other tactical interests such as secrecy. It underlines Russian intelligence’s tendency towards theatrical aggression.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, for example, is a master of chekist deception and faux sincerity. Lavrov revels in embarrassing his Western counterparts wherever possible. And Putin loves to portray dominance over adversaries and allies alike. His soccer ball gift to President Trump, dog antics with Angela Merkel, and pen showdown with Oleg Derpiska, are just a few examples of Putin’s sentimentality.

On the other hand, Putin becomes enraged when the game is shifted against him. He doesn’t like being lectured by the president of Belarus, or being handed evidence of Russian aggression by Fox News’ Chris Wallace.