MOSCOW—In a shocking turn of events that has left the international community baffled, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced today that he has successfully invented time travel and has been secretly altering the course of history for years. The revelation came during a press conference where Putin arrived three hours late, citing “temporal jet lag” as the cause for his tardiness.
Unveiling what appeared to be a cardboard box adorned with blinking Christmas lights, Putin declared, “Behold, the future of the past is now in Russia’s hands!” As bewildered journalists looked on, the Russian leader proceeded to make a series of increasingly outlandish claims about his temporal exploits.
“You may think you know history, but let me assure you, it’s all fake news,” Putin said, adjusting his suspiciously shiny tracksuit. “Thanks to my ingenious invention, I can now reveal that Russia—I mean, I—have been responsible for every major achievement in human history.”
According to Putin, his time-traveling adventures include winning the Crimean War in 1856, single-handedly securing victory for the USSR in the Space Race, and ghostwriting all of Tolstoy’s novels “in a weekend.” As evidence, the Russian president presented a series of poorly photoshopped images showing himself in various historical settings, including one where he appeared to be arm-wrestling Genghis Khan.
World leaders have expressed skepticism about Putin’s claims, with French President Emmanuel Macron remarking, “If he can truly travel through time, perhaps he could go back and make better life choices.” Meanwhile, Russian state media has enthusiastically embraced the news, running headlines such as “Putin: Master of Space and Time” and “Glorious Leader Invents Pickle, Saves Humanity from Bland Sandwiches.”
When pressed about recent failures, such as the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Putin was quick to offer temporal justifications. “What you perceive as setbacks are merely stepping stones to greater victories in alternate timelines,” he explained, waving a piece of paper he claimed was “a newspaper from 2076” that showed Russia ruling over “the entire solar system and parts of Alpha Centauri.”
The Russian leader went on to announce a series of historical “corrections” that he plans to implement. These include revealing that Russia actually invented democracy, capitalism, and the internet, as well as claiming that he personally won every Olympic gold medal since 1980 while competing under various aliases.
“You may remember a swimmer named Michael Phelps,” Putin mused, “but in the true timeline, it was me in a very convincing rubber mask.”
As for the practical applications of his alleged time travel technology, Putin promised to fix all of Russia’s problems “yesterday” and bring back extinct Siberian tigers—although observers noted that the animals he presented looked suspiciously like house cats painted orange with black stripes hastily added with a Sharpie.
In a move that has raised eyebrows and checkbooks alike, Putin has offered to help other world leaders “correct” their pasts for a “small fee.” Sources close to the Kremlin report that North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has already expressed interest, hoping to retroactively make himself “the true inventor of K-pop.”
As the press conference drew to a close, Putin urged Russian citizens to report any “temporal anomalies” to the authorities and encouraged them to pre-order his upcoming book, “Time Lord: How I Shaped the Past, Present, and Future (And How You Can Too, For Just 10 Easy Payments of 9.99).”
In a final flourish, the Russian president attempted to demonstrate his time machine by vanishing in a puff of smoke. However, witnesses report that he simply ducked behind the podium and crawled off stage, leaving behind only a potato clock and a lingering scent of borsch.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later assured the press that Putin “will return yesterday,” leaving the world to brace for more temporal shenanigans and alternative facts from the self-proclaimed “Chronos of the Kremlin.”
As of press time, Putin was reportedly seen trying to convince a group of perplexed paleontologists that T-Rexes were “actually quite cuddly” and that he had “the selfies to prove it.”
