{"id":374877,"date":"2025-12-28T22:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T22:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374877\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T22:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T22:41:13","slug":"russia-drops-menacing-ai-video-ahead-of-mar-a-lago-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374877\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Drops Menacing AI Video Ahead of Mar-a-Lago Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Russian Embassy in Kenya showed little interest in peace on Earth this Christmas season.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin outpost released a threatening artificial intelligence\u2013generated video depicting Donald Trump and other world leaders receiving Christmas gifts\u2014while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is handed a pair of handcuffs.<\/p>\n

The video, which had racked up about 240,000 views<\/a> on X as of publication, was posted just hours before Zelensky was set to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence to discuss a U.S.-brokered peace plan between Russia and Ukraine. The clip also features a U.S. dollar\u2013shaped Christmas ornament shattering on the floor.<\/p>\n

\"SteveSteve Witkoff shaking hands with Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this year. Gavriil Grigorov\/via REUTERS <\/p>\n

\u201cChristmas season is the time of giving, when Russia makes sure that all of its friends get something nice and are well and merry,\u201d reads the caption on the video, which was produced by the Russian state-backed outlet Sputnik. \u201cAs for the naughty ones, they too will get what is coming for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video opens with Russian President Vladimir Putin dressed as Santa Claus, a sack of toys slung over his shoulder as an instrumental version of \u201cWe Wish You A Merry Christmas\u201d plays.<\/p>\n

A smiling Trump is shown gleefully unwrapping a box containing neither weapons nor money\u2014but instead a framed photograph of himself with Putin from their widely panned summit in Alaska earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\"ANCHORAGE,Trump met Putin amid great fanfare in Alaska in August and insisted \u201cgreat progress\u201d was made. Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s close allies and fellow authoritarian-friendly leaders are then depicted receiving carefully curated gifts. Chinese President Xi Jinping opens a box of decorative ornaments shaped like the currency symbols for the Chinese yuan and Japanese yen (\u00a5) alongside the Russian ruble (\u20bd), as a dollar-bill ornament tumbles from a Christmas tree and shatters.<\/p>\n

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi <\/a>receives a figurine of a Russian stealth fighter jet\u2014an apparent nod to the Kremlin\u2019s reported offer<\/a> to manufacture the aircraft for India\u2019s air force.<\/p>\n

\"FILEIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were keen to put on a display of unity at the SCO summit. Alexander Zemlianichenko\/via REUTERS <\/p>\n

Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is gifted a DJ set that springs to life, proclaiming, \u201cNo war just peace, forever, forever, forever,\u201d a thinly veiled reference to the U.S. ramping up its military presence in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan appears holding a snow globe depicting the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, which Russia financed with roughly $9 billion this year, according to reports.<\/a><\/p>\n

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un smiles at a note reading \u201cFrom Russia, with gratitude,\u201d accompanied by a wrapped sword, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n hoists a gift card for Gazprom, Russia\u2019s state-owned energy giant.<\/p>\n

The only gift worse than Trump\u2019s is reserved for Zelensky, who opens a box containing handcuffs and is then shown frowning behind bars.<\/p>\n

The video surfaced as Russia continued to escalate<\/a> its war in Ukraine, days after U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said Moscow was \u201cfully committed\u201d to achieving peace.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.Some of Zelensky and Trump’s past meetings have turned contentious. Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Russian forces bombed Kyiv on Saturday morning, killing one person and injuring dozens more\u2014less than a week after Witkoff praised Russia\u2019s supposed \u201ccommitment\u201d on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia remains fully committed to achieving peace in Ukraine. Russia highly values the efforts and support of the United States to resolve the Ukrainian conflict and re-establish global security,\u201d Witkoff wrote on Dec. 21.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 27, Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry boasted that it had carried out a \u201cmassive strike\u201d on Ukraine, using \u201clong-range precision-guided weapons from land, air, and sea, including Kinzhal hypersonic aeroballistic missiles\u201d to target what it called \u201cUkrainian military-industrial complex enterprises.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Russian Embassy in Kenya showed little interest in peace on Earth this Christmas season. The Kremlin outpost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,144,1072,6505,34451,1206,74,1208,6132],"class_list":["post-374877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-china","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-north-korea","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-technology","tag-ukraine","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}