For anyone who watched Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in the early 2000s, the Trump administration’s crackdown on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night comedy show immediately brought to mind an incident from early in the Russian autocrat’s presidency: the forced cancellation of a popular satirical puppet show called “Kukly.”

As one of his first acts as president, Putin pressured an independent TV network to shut down the show, which mercilessly mocked Russia’s leading political players using grotesque puppets that caricatured both their features and their dirty dealings. For a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians could tune into Kukly and laugh at their leaders. In one memorable episode, Boris Yeltsin rocks a cradle containing a demonic baby Putin and laments his role in putting him in power. Tens of millions of Russians were watching.

The comedic genius behind “Kukly” was Viktor Shenderovich, who helmed the show from 1994-2002 and gained a following akin to that of Jon Stewart — that is, if Jon Stewart also ran “The Muppet Show.” Even after the show’s cancellation (and the subsequent shuttering of the NTV network that screened it), Shenderovich continued to live and work in Russia, becoming a prominent anti-Putin critic on the radio station Ekho Moskvy. He only fled the country in December 2021, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, after the Kremlin designated him a “foreign agent” and he faced libel charges from a Putin ally.

Now living in Poland, Shenderovich has watched as Donald Trump’s administration has carried out an unprecedented pressure campaign on American comedians and the networks that employ them. “This is a test,” Shenderovich said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. “Trump is acting like Putin. But he doesn’t have Putin’s resources. The only way he wins is if you surrender.”

Shenderovich says satire remains one of the most potent tools for protecting democracy, because it reveals truths and reaches broader audiences than other forms of political speech. And he says American democracy will persevere as long as the country protects its right to laugh at its leaders.

“Satire is the sharpest instrument of free speech. And the first thing all dictators do is crack down on freedom of speech,” Shenderovich said. “Because in a totalitarian state, you can crush the courts, you can crush elections; you can crush everything. But you can’t crush laughter.”

This conversation has been translated from Russian and edited for length and clarity.

Vladimir Putin shut down your satirical puppet show. Donald Trump has tried to shut down a comedy show. Is Donald Trump America’s Putin?

Trump would love to be like Putin. He wants Putin’s capacity to subdue the press, the Congress, the Senate, the courts, federalism.

But they are very different, Putin and Trump. The only thing they have in common is that when they get power, they are absolutely authoritarian. But the nature of their authoritarianism is different; they are psychologically very different. Putin was born with an inferiority complex, he was a nobody who was all of a sudden elevated by circumstance. Trump has been an elite since birth. And Putin is certainly much stronger and cleverer. He is manipulating Trump, not the other way around.

Trump is much more open and brazen than Putin in his attacks on satire and criticism. Putin did not publicly voice complaints against journalists, against us; he pretended he had nothing to do with it, though of course everyone knew he was behind it all.

Trump is much more up front than Putin. He doesn’t shy away from saying explicitly that he is settling scores with his political opponents. He doesn’t hide that he is taking revenge. He’s much more open than Putin, who did all his dirty work in secret.

What’s worse, someone who settles scores openly or in secret?

It’s all bad. But open is better. That doesn’t mean Trump is better, but it is better for society to get a warning of impending danger. The American public have received a clear signal of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, and they are responding to it.

In Putin’s case, a huge number of Russians really believed in him. So many people, even liberals, were on Putin’s side because they believed he was fighting oligarchs, that he was fighting to bring back law and order. He was helped by so many people who are now distancing themselves from him or are even on the run from him. But I remember how these people helped Putin gain a foothold in power and helped him smash an independent television station.

Will Trump manage to bend American democracy to his will?

Trump would love to be Putin, but he won’t succeed for several reasons. Chiefly because of the American traditions of free speech, the separation of powers, the independence of the courts, elections. Trump is finite — and he isn’t just limited by how long he lives, as Putin is.

In his 25 years in power, Putin suppressed all freedom of speech, elections, courts, access to the streets. He has completely subjugated Russia. Trump will not be able to subjugate America, this is quite obvious. This is the most important and fundamental difference.

And Jimmy Kimmel is back on the airwaves.

Trump hated it when Alec Baldwin portrayed him on Saturday Night Live. Putin despised the Putin puppet on “Kukly.” Why can’t autocrats take a joke?

Because laughter can’t be put on trial. [19th century Russian novelist and political satirist Nikolai] Gogol said that even those who fear nothing fear laughter. Because in a totalitarian state, you can crush the courts, you can crush elections; you can crush everything. But you can’t crush laughter.

If a caricature cracks people up, it’s because it rings true. It means the truth is hidden inside the joke. And it is absolutely irrefutable, laughter is a verdict. Laughter is public and obvious evidence that you are wrong, that you are ridiculous.

Satire is the sharpest instrument of free speech. And the first thing all dictators do is crack down on freedom of speech.

So does Putin have a sense of humor?

Everyone has a sense of humor. And what they do and don’t find funny paints a pretty good portrait of a person. Putin’s sense of humor characterizes him very well. What doesn’t he have? Any sense of self-irony, any ability to self-reflect — he lost it, if he ever had any, after 25 years in the sanctified air of the Kremlin. In his own eyes, he is a great Russian czar, with a messianic brain, and he is absolutely serious.

Putin didn’t have to imprison or kill all his critics; he shut a few up, and others censored themselves. Saturday Night Live returns to U.S. television for its 51st season on Oct. 4. What advice do you have for SNL and other American performers at this moment?

You need to understand that Trump is trying to change the rules of the game, and he has the resources to do it. But you have the resources to resist. You must not allow Trump to change the rules; you must not allow the First Amendment to be repealed.

The American situation is dramatic, but it is not fatal.

You aren’t facing the kinds of dangers we faced. There were criminal cases, extra-judicial pressure, surveillance, illegal break-ins, slander, harassing phone calls, the threat of beatings, and so on. We were forced into hiding. In Putin’s Russia, journalists are killed.

American comedians don’t face these dangers, because as far as I know, the United States still has police and courts and judges and elections. Therefore, you must hold firm.

This is a test. Trump is acting like Putin. But he doesn’t have Putin’s resources. The only way he wins is if you surrender. If you lie down and take it, then yes, Trump will be able to make his new rules the norm. If you don’t, he can’t.

Don’t be afraid. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Unemployment? I don’t think you will starve to death. You’re not in danger of death or imprisonment, or being hit on the head with a crowbar. Remember Charlie Chaplin, who left the U.S. during McCarthyism. He was forced to flee the country. But he’s still Chaplin. And those who banned him from returning — we don’t know their names. And then he won an Oscar, when the norms changed, and America gave a standing ovation to old Chaplin.

Is comedy an important tool of protest? Or is it more of a defense mechanism for people who are powerless?

In a free country, satire is a powerful weapon of freedom of speech, and therefore of public dialogue, and therefore of politics, because in a free country these are related things. Because viewers become voters.

At the time of “Kukly,” satire was part of Russian public dialogue, and I felt good about myself. When tens of millions of people watch your programs, you inevitably realize that you don’t just have an opinion, you have a voice. And this voice isn’t contained; it can be heard all over the country.

But since Putin destroyed free speech in Russia, I’ve felt like a psychotherapist. These days it’s helpful for people to hear my opinion so they can feel normal, to let them know that just because we’re outnumbered, it doesn’t mean we are wrong. The main confession I hear is this: “You said what I’ve been thinking.”

Putin — like all authoritarian leaders — does not just throw critics out of the political process; he marginalizes us. People who don’t like what he is doing, who have been criticizing Putin using whatever means they can, they are told they are crazy, they are in the minority. They’re not just jailing them and driving them out of the country. They’re telling millions of people that whoever is against Putin is against Russia.

So it’s important for a normal voice to be heard. So people understand, whether they’ve stayed in Russia or they’ve left, that just because they are in the political minority, this doesn’t mean they are crazy.

How do you live with the implicit threat hanging over you from Putin’s regime? Are you afraid?

I take it into account. I live in Poland. I am careful. Before every trip, if it’s not within Europe’s Schengen area, America, Israel or England, I consult my lawyers about whether I might be extradited. But the risks I face outside Russia are completely incomparable with what they’re doing to those who remain in Russia. People are in jail there and they are being killed. And we understand that Putin’s instruments are the tools of a murderer after what he did to [opposition leader Alexei] Navalny. So I can’t complain.

You once wrote about the “quiet, daily decline of morals” in Putin’s Russia, which allowed him to consolidate power and crush democracy. What are some of the symptoms people missed?

An attack on an independent television network.

At the time, freedom of speech had only recently appeared in Russia and had not become a sacred cow like it is in America. We never came close to a First Amendment. We just got a sudden sliver of relief; the regime loosened the shackles. But free speech was never seen as a right. So it’s understandable that people missed the symptoms — because Russian society was very immature.

You know, when NTV was destroyed 20 years ago, a lot of people said to me, “You have a problem.” “We sympathize with you.” I said, “I’m not the one with the problem. You’re the one with the problem. They won’t tell you the truth, they’ll do whatever they want to your children. Without a free press, you’re the one with problems.”

When was it clear what Putin would become?

[Italian writer] Umberto Eco listed 14 signs of fascism. Concentration of power in one person’s hands, conservative values, reliance on the church and big capital, patriotic vocabulary, patriotic demagogy and so on. Twenty years ago, Putin’s Russia already fulfilled 11 of the 14. This was pretty obvious.

Some did not understand, and some did not want to understand. Putin got very lucky with the economy. [Osama] Bin Laden and India and China ensured the rise in oil prices, and the West chose not to see obvious signs. The West made Putin into today’s nightmare. The West had far more opportunities to stop Putin than I did, you know? [Former German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, [former French President Nicolas] Sarkozy, and [former U.S. President George W.] Bush had far more opportunities to stop Putin than Russian journalists and opposition politicians who were killed or imprisoned or thrown out of the country.

But the West chose to ignore everything and be friends with Putin. Today’s catastrophe, today’s Putin, who is absolutely convinced of his strength and that he will buy off half the West and intimidate the other half — that Putin was created by the West itself.

You once said a society, like a person, reaches a point when it passes out from pain, and then you can do anything you want to it. It becomes compliant. When was this moment in Russia?

The point after which Russian society lost consciousness from pain was probably Beslan [the 2004 school siege in which 334 people were killed, including 186 children, after Russian special forces stormed a gym where militants linked to the Chechen separatist insurgency were holding 1,100 people hostage]. Putin had a choice between accepting a political defeat [by allowing Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov to mediate the crisis] or killing all those kids. And he chose to kill the children.

This was the moment. It seems to me that after that, the country simply lost consciousness from pain. We either needed some kind of uprising against these murderers, or to lose social consciousness. And society lost social consciousness.

That’s where the Stockholm syndrome started — people trying to reassure themselves that it couldn’t have happened that way, that everything was OK, that there was no other choice. And Stockholm syndrome is now, of course, the most obvious symptom in a Russian society that is being held hostage by Putin. Most Russians convince themselves that everything is normal and everything is fine.

What happens to a country when it can no longer laugh at its leaders?

To quote the great Polish writer Stanisław Jerzy Lec, in places where laughter is forbidden, you’re also not allowed to cry. After Beslan, I remembered this quote. You aren’t even allowed to cry.

We see North Korea, we see Central Asian republics, we see Belarus — we know what happens in countries where laughing at the head of state is forbidden. We know how people live and how they die in these countries.

This is so obvious and has been said so many times, including by Benjamin Franklin, who said freedom of speech is the most important freedom because with it you can protect the others.

Can America still laugh at itself?

I’m still optimistic. Because the first time I came to America exactly 30 years ago, Jon Stewart was on TV. And now, Jon Stewart is still on TV. The president has changed five, six times since then, but Jon Stewart remains. And Jon Stewart can take down the American president — it doesn’t matter which president — he can slap him down in prime time. And I am absolutely convinced that this won’t change.