German carnival float builder Jacques Tilly rolled three new Putin-mocking floats through Dusseldorf's Rose Monday parade on 16 February, defying a Moscow court that is prosecuting him in absentia for his satirical depictions of the Russian president, Spiegel and Tagesschau report.
Russia's prosecution of a German satirist fits a pattern of weaponizing its judiciary against foreign critics of Moscow's war in Ukraine, extending the Kremlin's domestic crackdown on free speech beyond its own borders.
Tilly answers Moscow with three Putin floats
The 62-year-old sculptor, who faces Moscow's charges of "defaming Russian state bodies" and up to ten years in prison, sent all three floats through Dusseldorf's streets. One depicted a grim-looking Putin impaling a small carnival jester with a sword, while the tiny figure struck back with a cardboard clapper. The second showed Putin steering a blue AfD drone resembling party leader Alice Weidel — the AfD is Germany's pro-Russian party that came second in the previous parliamentary elections. The third portrayed Putin and Trump greedily devouring Europe together.
"It is a duel with very unequal weapons," Tilly told Tagesschau. On one side stand the Russian state's weapons, "which are quite sharp," and on the other side satire. "It is only made of cardboard, it can't kill," the artist said.
Tilly told German broadcaster WDR he had not intended to make especially extreme floats in response to the Moscow trial.
"We won't be extra hard now, that's also silly. We simply make good political satire, as always," he said.
Rose Monday, he added, was "a normal, if very hard working day." But unlike most years, "thanks to this trial, not everything ends after Ash Wednesday. It will continue, unfortunately."
Ash Wednesday, falling on 18 February 2026, marks the end of the festive Carnival season and the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance in Christian traditions.
"The verdict is probably already decided"
Tilly said he had still not been officially notified about the proceedings against him. His court-appointed public defender had not contacted him either. He called the case "a propaganda trial of a totalitarian regime." He added: '
"Most likely, the verdict against me is already decided. I assume it will be many, many years in a labor camp."
The sculptor described the prosecution as an attack on freedom of speech, press freedom, satire, and "Narrenfreiheit" ("fool's freedom") — the traditional German jester's right to mock the powerful.
Tilly said the trial made visible "how ridiculous this regime makes itself, deploying such means against cardboard figures." He called the prosecution a validation of his decades of work, proving that satire actually hurts and that "potentates, autocrats, and despots are genuinely afraid of people's fearless laughter at them."
Other targets: Merz, Trump, Epstein
Putin was not the only target at carnivals. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) appeared on multiple floats across the three cities. Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein made an appearance in Dusseldorf as a papier-mache devil with horns and wings. Another Mainz float depicted Trump harassing the Statue of Liberty.
