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The minute-long video appears at first glance to show a packed courtroom with Vladimir Putin standing in the cage-like enclosure for defendants, with his head bowed, facing trial on charges of theft and terrorism.

A video showing Russian President Vladimir Putin going on trial, which is in fact a cleverly-edited montage, became an Internet hit in Russia on Wednesday, ahead of presidential polls, with two million views.

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But the footage is a neat collage of shots from the trial of Putin’s arch foe, toppled oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, with the premier’s face superimposed on Khodorkovsky’s much taller frame.

The video – which has garnered almost two million views on YouTube – has gone viral some two weeks ahead of the March 4 presidential elections in which Putin is seeking a historic third Kremlin term in the face of protests.

“The former prime minister was brought to the Khamovnichesky court about half-an-hour ago” says the voice-over, which is based on state television coverage of the second Khodorkovsky trial.

Khodorkovsky was jailed for tax evasion and then convicted of fraud in a second trial in a Moscow court in late 2010. He is set to stay in jail until 2016.


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Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published Dancing and Crying, a colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in the life of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and two fun books in English: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.