Can anyone tell from this photo

 

That appears to be one of the Blancpain Aqua Lung Grande Dates that Putin is famous for throwing around - literally.

Aside from handing them out to poor children, if I remember correctly he’s been at a building groundbreaking and took one off and threw it into the wet cement.

EDIT: now with video!

 

I believe it's a Blancpain Aqua Lung Date

 

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/s...n-grande-date-aqua-lung-while-annexing-crimea

 

Incidental humble-brag: I negotiated the documents being executed in this photo, and did not receive a Blancpain

 

Story?

 

Back in 2013, when Russia was still turning toward the west, Rosneft and ExxonMobil had a global joint venture with several moving parts. Some of those moving parts I negotiated as counsel to the Russians. The signing above is swapping access to Arctic exploration.

It was exciting times; Russia seemed to want acceptance from the West, and the West was reciprocating.

All that changed not long after this photo, when Putin rolled into Crimea.

 

Did a lot of business in Russia 2008 - 2013. What a sad turn ... I don’t give a rat’s ass what watch that creep is wearing. Especially after yesterday.

 

Same here, on all fronts.

And did you see that as of today Putin’s essentially installed himself until 2040?

 

Well I suppose that wasn’t 100% correct: I still don’t mind some critical fodder over his watch antics

 

One way or the other, he was always going to figure out some way to stay in power. It's the only way he can stay out of prison. Watches aside, he is the undefeated, gold metal champion of thugs.

 

And among the Russians, that’s saying something.

(Not to impute thuggery to all Russians, but instead to impute a general hardness of all Russians - which makes that much more impressive to succeed in thuggery amongst all that hardness.)

 

Choosing stability over thuggery is always a bad choice.

 

Only until 2032.

 

At this point, I figured that rounding up was predictive...