He lied to us!  Who’d have thought the Prime Minister was not really capable of identifying a pair of sixth century vases whilst deep sea diving.  The truth is out.  From the New York Times,

Vladimir V. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, says now-famous television video of the Russian prime minister diving to the bottom of a bay and discovering ceramic jugs from the sixth century was, in fact, a setup.

In an interview released late on Tuesday, Mr. Peskov said that the jugs had actually been found by archeologists during an expedition “several weeks or days before.” They were then placed in six feet of water, where Mr. Putin, dressed in a wetsuit and trailed by cameramen, could find them.