Vladimir Putin named 'Bellend of the Year' with giant penis monument in village of Bell End

15 December 2022, 18:11

Vladimir Putin has been named "Bellend of the Year" by the village of Bell End, which has marked the award by erecting a statue of him with a penis-shaped head.

The Russian leader earned the gong after launching his bloody invasion of Ukraine, leading to tens of thousands of casualties on both sides of the conflict.

The monument was put up in Bell End, Worcestershire, so eggs could be hurled at it on Thursday.

The protest's organiser - who did not want to give their name - said: "I needed to award somebody with the Bellend of the Year award and I thought there was one person who has universally been a bellend this year - and that's Vladimir Putin.

"You could just throw eggs at the statue, which people did so willingly and quite happily.

"It's been very well received. One person said, 'I thought it was my boss for a second'."

The invasion has been almost a complete failure, with Moscow failing to capture Kyiv - and the country - in the first few days, instead leading to a protracted conflict.

Russia has even lost the only significant city it captured after Ukraine liberated Kherson from its grip.

Instead, Russia is now trying to keep hold of the territories it has seized - illegally declaring them to be annexed - by calling up hundreds of thousands of people to serve and launching missiles at Ukraine's infrastructure.

Within his own country, Putin has tried to keep his grip on power by imposing harsh jail terms for critics of the war and brutally clamped down on protests that broke out after the war began and when mobilisation was announced.

He recently had to cancel his yearly question-and-answer session, a largely scripted affair designed to promote his image. There are ongoing questions about how healthy he is and whether his position is secure given the way the war has panned out.

In Bell End, the protest organiser said they were going to sell small figures of the statue to raise money for Ukrainian refugees.

Read more: Putin under pressure over Ukraine war disaster as Kremlin scraps New Year’s press conference

"I've seen over the course of the year the devastation that has happened in Ukraine and that so many lives that have been displaced as a result of the war," they said.

"So I thought, 'I really want to help out and I want to do my bit and I want to try and raise some money to help those individuals'."

The protester said they had "a couple of artists" cut the statue out.

"The message is pretty simple - it's exactly what it says on the tin."