Russian leader in silly sketch (5)
I believe the answer is:
draft
'sketch' is the definition.
(draft is a kind of sketch)
'russian leader in silly' is the wordplay.
'leader' suggests taking the first letters.
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'silly' becomes 'daft' (I've seen this before).
The initial letter of 'russian' is 'r'.
'r' put inside 'daft' is 'DRAFT'.
(Other definitions for draft that I've seen before include "Current of air or preliminary version" , "Send" , "Preliminary outline" , "conscript" , "Formulate" .)