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In Putin’s Russia, Foreign Ministry trolls you.

So here’s a thing that happened: the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence just released a study on Russian humor.

Quick point of clarification: NATO StratCom COE, as the group is known, is a “multi-nationally constituted and NATO-accredited international military organization, which is not part of the NATO Command Structure, nor subordinate to any other NATO entity,” according to its website. In plain English, it's a think tank based in Latvia that studies security issues relevant to NATO member countries. It's not the same thing as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Now, on to the comedy.

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The group didn’t actually analyze 1980s Yakov Smirnoff jokes — though someone definitely should — but it looked at how late-night Russian comedy shows work to discredit Western leaders and the idea of democracy in general.

20th Century Fox / Via giphy.com

These shows, broadcast on Russian state-owned television, serve as a “massive humor-driven propaganda tool aimed at national and international target audiences,” according to the study’s authors.

The research also looked at Ukrainian humor as “counter-propaganda” to the Kremlin line and studied a popular comedy show format known as KVN.

StratCom / Via stratcomcoe.org

As anyone who’s studied a foreign language knows, jokes don’t always translate. But Russia thought the idea of this think tank studying its humor as a “tool of strategic political communication” was preeeeetttttty hilarious.

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