Breitbart reported today that a senior envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly mocked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week, drawing sharp attention to Mamdani’s ideological rhetoric just days after his inauguration.

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a key Kremlin envoy to the US, reacted on X to a clip from Mamdani’s inaugural address. In the speech, Mamdani declared that New York would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

Dmitriev replied bluntly: “Dear Comrade Mamdani — just a friendly reminder that this has been tried before,” a remark widely interpreted as a reference to the repeated failures of communist and collectivist systems, including those pioneered in the former Soviet Union.