The wardrobe choice of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov drew attention as the Russian team touched down in Alaska Friday. Lavrov was seen wearing a sweatshirt with the inscription CCCP, the Cyrillic abbreviation for USSR, as he entered the hotel in Alaska where Putin is set to hold talks with Donald Trump. Former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis quipped on X about Lavrov’s clothing choice: “‘Just give us half of Ukraine and we promise we will stop,’ says negotiator wearing USSR sweatshirt.”Russian fashion bloggers identified the $120 sweatshirt as the work of Selsovet, a Chelyabinsk-based brand that specialises in “Soviet heritage” clothing.“This is how much the Russians respect Trump. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov turns up to the ‘Negotiations’ with Trump in a fucking USSR T-Shirt. The Russians are laughing at America and the West,” one social media comment read.“You can’t make this up. War criminal Lavrov arrives to Alaska wearing a USSR sweater. The Russians aren’t even bothering to hide their bloody imperialist ambitions on US soil,” another wrote.“Lavrov mocks the Americans right in their own backyard by wearing a t-shirt that says CCCP (USSR). If Trump doesn’t react, America will become the world’s laughingstock,” a third user wrote. “Lavrov’s “USSR” sweater in Alaska is a clear nod to the Putin regime’s imperial ambitions. They’re stuck in the past and want to pull Ukraine and Belarus back with them – forgetting we are free nations that will never return to their “brotherhood”. Dictators cannot be appeased,” Belarusian politician Franak Viačorka posted.The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. The capital of the USSR was Moscow, which is also modern Russia’s capital city. The countries under the USSR were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, apart from Russia and Ukraine.The choice of Alaska, which was part of Russia until 1867, came under criticism as Trump is hosting Putin on US soil. Trump’s former NSA John Bolton said the summit in Alaska is already a victory for Putin.
