Old Putin video on unpaid workers goes viral as IndiGo faces passenger fury

Putin clip resurfaces amid IndiGo chaos

A 2009 clip of Vladimir Putin publicly berating billionaire Oleg Deripaska over unpaid workers is circulating again, shared by Indian users who say IndiGo’s bosses deserve similar treatment after days of mass flight cancellations, exhausted crews, and stranded passengers nationwide.

An old video of Vladimir Putin publicly dressing down a billionaire industrialist has resurfaced online, after an X user shared it with the caption that “IndiGo needs this… treatment.” The clip is being widely circulated in India amid days of chaos from large-scale IndiGo flight cancellations and delays.

The video dates back to 2009 in the Russian industrial town of Pikalyovo. Then prime minister Putin confronts oligarch Oleg Deripaska over factories that had stopped paying workers for three months, plunging the town into crisis. In the televised meeting, Putin accuses the owners of taking “thousands of people hostage” to their “trivial greed” and questions their social responsibility. He then throws an undertaking across the table, saying, “I don’t see your signature… Come and sign,” and later curtly demands, “Give me back my pen,” after Deripaska tries to walk away with it.

In India, the clip has gone viral in the middle of IndiGo’s operational meltdown. The country’s largest airline has cancelled or severely delayed over 1,000 flights over several days, after failing to adequately staff rosters for new Flight Duty Time Limitation rules that mandate more rest for crew. Airports in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad have seen passengers sleeping on terminal floors, scrambling for baggage and flooding social media with complaints.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has since partially rolled back night-duty norms for IndiGo alone until February 2026, a move that has intensified anger over perceived “arm-twisting” of the regulator by a dominant private player. One X post that gained traction explicitly compared the situation to Putin’s intervention in Pikalyovo, describing the Russian leader’s approach as a “master class on how to handle oligarchs and oligopolies.” Another user, quoted by multiple news outlets, summed up the mood more bluntly: “IndiGo needs this… treatment.”

For many Indians watching the airport chaos unfold, the resurfaced Putin clip has become a symbol, less about admiration for his politics and more about a yearning for visible, public accountability when corporate decisions disrupt ordinary lives. As IndiGo works to restore its schedule and the DGCA investigates what went wrong, the debate online is no longer just about delayed flights. It is about how far big business should be allowed to push the state, and whether regulators can show the same resolve for stranded passengers that Putin once showed for unpaid workers.