On August 11–12, Russian state media outlet Radio Sputnik and Russian-language Facebook accounts (1,2,3,4,5) shared information claiming that ahead of the August 15 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a food establishment in Alaska was offering its customers a dish dedicated to Putin. Of the two attached photos, one shows the menu board of the establishment, with the dish name “Exclusive – Mr. Putin’s Russian ‘Poutine’ $2.95” and a drawing of Trump and Putin shaking hands. The second photo depicts a product labeled “Poutine.” Radio Sputnik and some of the posts specify that this bar is located in Girdwood, which some media outlets had initially speculated as a possible venue for the presidential meeting.
The circulating claim that, ahead of a planned meeting in Alaska, a local food establishment dedicated a dish to Putin is false. The menu photo on which this claim is based has been fabricated. The second photo, which appears in some of the posts, simply shows the Canadian dish “Poutine,” which has no connection to Vladimir Putin. This particular image has been available in open sources for years.
- Fabricated menu photo
On the menu board in the photo, the logo of Anchorage Inn is visible alongside the words “Lake Inguadona.” An open-source search revealed that the establishment is located in Minnesota, on Lake Inguadona, not in Alaska, as claimed in the posts.
The image of the board showing the bar’s “Putin dish” offer has been edited. We found the original version in photos uploaded to Google by Anchorage Inn customers. The image is dated March 2025. In the original version, Putin is not mentioned, and the board lists standard dishes.
In addition, the “French fries” photo used by Facebook accounts, with a box labeled “Poutine,” refers to the Canadian variant of French fries. This specific photo was first posted online 10 years ago.
The dish called “Poutine” originated in Quebec, Canada, in the 1950s. Unlike traditional French fries, it includes cheese curds and meat gravy. According to one account, when a customer asked a cook to add cheese curds to fries, the cook replied that it would cause a big mess (in French, Poutine). Today, it is an integral part of Canadian cuisine and quite popular.
It is worth noting that the Estonian outlet Delfi’s fact-checking team also verified this claim. According to their report, the fabricated photo about a dish in Alaska dedicated to Putin was first published on August 11 at 15:47 Moscow time on the Kremlin-supporting Telegram channel Шаман Раху. On August 12, Radio Sputnik posted an identical message on Telegram. Within hours, the information spread to hundreds of Russian-language Telegram channels, amassing nearly 600,000 views, while the photos also appeared on X, Instagram, and various websites, including in English and German.
Jokes about the similarity between the name of Russia’s president and the Canadian dish often circulate online.
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