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The chant has its origins in "Surkis Khuylo!", a football chant initiated by the ultras of FC Metalist Kharkiv some time in 2010, during the height of a feud between two Ukrainian oligarchs, Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, then owner of "Metalist", and Hryhoriy Surkis, then president of the Football Federation of Ukraine who had strong historic and family ties with FC Dynamo Kyiv. The Kharkiv fans, who sided with their club president, chanted "Surkis Khuylo!" to express their dislike of the Football Federation president in vulgar and profane form.  
  
The first recorded public performance of the "Putin khuylo (en.wikipedia.org)!" chant and the song that grew from it took place in March 2014 in Kharkiv, when the local fans chanted it during their street march. The recording was soon posted to YouTube. Various groups of Ukrainian ultras of major Ukrainian clubs with the exception of FC Sevastopol have historically held strong pro-Ukrainian political views. These football fans sided with Ukraine at the onset of the Russian annexation of Crimea and military intervention, as well as during the pro-Russian unrest in the east and south of Ukraine, when the city of Kharkiv was in turmoil.  
  
Soon, the song that vulgarly derided Putin gained wider popularity, spreading amongst other clubs, such as the fans of Shakhtar Donetsk (Donetsk) and Dynamo Kyiv (Kyiv), who were formerly feuding but sang the song together. During the 2014 Russian intervention and partial occupation of Ukraine, the ultras of various Ukrainian clubs set aside their rivalries and chanted the song in joint street marches. The chant became "a nationwide cultural meme" according to The Guardian.  
  
Alexander J. Motyl reported, "A shorthand, more modest version of the lyrics has even entered the popular discourse. If you want to express your views of Putin, all you need do is say 'la-la la-la la-la', and everything's quite clear," which is a reference to the refrain of the chant.  
  
Artemy Troitsky identified the melody of the chant as coming from the song "Speedy Gonzales", popularised by American singer Pat Boone in 1962.  
  
In June 2015, the Russian Federal Security Service started a criminal prosecution and investigation of activist Daria Poludova for using the song on VK.  
  
When Russian television channel TNT aired one episode of the Ukrainian sitcom Servant of the People in December 2019, a scene containing a joke that referenced the song, in which the fictional president played by Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked "Putin khublo?" («Путин — хубло?») when told that Putin wore a Hublot watch, was cut out of the episode. The omission occurred only within central Russia and the Moscow region, but not in the eastern regions of Russia.