He also fired crossbow bolts at a whale as part of an eco-tracking effort, proving that even when he's helping nature it involves at least medieval era weaponry. To give the whale a sporting chance he did so from a small rubber dinghy. Captain Ahab used an entire ship. The pansy. He's also tagged and weighed a Polar bear, proving that he's going to save the world if he has to defeat every single thing in it.
He helped lift the tranquilized bear onto scales before shaking its paw, both to show respect as one unbelievable badass to another, and to get a measure of the bear's physical strength should Russia ever need them as allies. If only he was alive at the same time as Theodore Roosevelt they'd have sorted out the whole stupid Cold War mano-a-mano, and it would only have cost the world one forest of felled trees.
On an official trade visit to Japan in Vladimir took time out from negotiations to spiritually kick the entire country's ass with Judo. In front of the Japanese Prime Minister in the Kodokan judo headquarters of Japan, Putin demonstrated his willingness to take on any nation at its own sport. He suited up and showed everyone his version of various sweeps and throws on the center Kodokan instructor in a sparring match. In fact, he's the only world leader with a special move Haraigoshi. While Qaddafi has to pay foreigners to fight his own people, you get the impression that if the Russian public ever rebelled Putin would roll up his sleeves and give the army the day off.
Putin simultaneously opens trade relations and his opponent's kidneys. Though, in Russia it's called Judo with Putin. And just like the best characters in Street Fighter, he's said to have crazy glowing energy, long-distance attacks too; when Russian ex-spy, Alexander Litvenko died of radiation poisoning in London, some diplomats insisted that Vladimir likely knew about the assassination plot. He was, after all, the ex-head of Russian secret service and then President of the Russian Federation.
While we don't have any proof, we're nearly certain that upon learning of Litvenko's death, Putin had some pithy action movie line like, "You can't expect to just leave the KGB without some Very few world leaders look good. Silvio Berlusconi had to sell his entire country to get women to stand near him, Kim John Il and son look like someone overinflated a pair of bleached footballs, and David Cameron looks like he at least encounters women provided they're shopping for competitive insurance rates.
Vladimir Putin operates on a different level, and that level is the top shelf magazines with the foil wrapping. You look like a great catch. So in addition to the fistful of heterosexual photos of him shirtless or dominating wild-animals, Putin also offers a compass for any Russian's who are confused about where they stand or are otherwise directionless. Via The Kremlin Who could be confused under the comforting warmth of that piercing gaze?
Putin also knows there's more to a man than a toned, musk scented exterior. He flexes his sensitive side frequently as well. In December of , he played piano to raise money for a charity that supports children suffering from eye diseases and cancer, presumably because he felt sorry for the kids who would never be able to see his unadulterated masculinity with their own eyes. He even sang a duet with an adorable little girl in front of the cameras of the world.
Who cares if he's Russian, at this point the Statue of Liberty would have dropped her torch if he proposed. Where American bureaucrats risk political suicide if they so much as breathe on an intern, Putin graciously and publicly accepts naked pictures of college co-eds.
Not just one girl from a university, but all the girls at that university, with female Moscow State University students sending him an erotic calendar of themselves for his 58th birthday earlier this year; Russian women literally professionally print and bind themselves for delivery to his house. Vladimir is sure your birthday cards are very nice too, of course. He got twelve for his birthday - that's a dozen times better than JFK. But a political victory in Ukraine might not even turn out to be the most striking victory this year for Vladpolitik — which is the blunt application of toughness in the face of an uncertain, divided ally.
Barack Obama long ago called for Assad to leave office. That now seems very unlikely. And Putin, who coldly calculated that Assad represented the best bulwark against Islamist extremism, has led the international defense of this war criminal. Barring a major reversal on the ground, his resoluteness and that of Assad and his Iranian supporters will produce a victory over a fractious moderate opposition that America and the West have tepidly and inadequately supported.
Admittedly, no good thing lasts forever. Sooner or later, Putin will likely see his historic run end. After all, as he himself keenly remembers, he may have won South Ossetia and Abkhazia in , but he sent the rest of Georgia headlong into the arms of the EU as a consequence. This will almost certainly lead to new ties — not only to the EU but to a NATO that will finally begin to reassess and modernize its mission.
Nothing awakes an alliance like an enemy. Europe will begin in earnest a search to reduce its dependency on Russian energy. And those photo ops at international summits are likely to be chilly for years to come.
Putin, like Obama, has never really been a hugger with a flair for the too-long embrace of predecessors like Yeltsin or Clinton. Indeed, this all seems likely to lead in an unhappy direction for Russia. Shusha was the key to the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Now Baku wants to turn the fabled fortress town into a resort. By David Rothkopf. April 17, , PM. His latest book is The Great Questions of Tomorrow. Twitter: djrothkopf. November 11, , PM. Blame Brussels.
In , Putin went on a tiger hunt in the Russian far-east as part of a scientific expedition. He shot a tiger with a tranquilizer dart, which allowed the researchers to tag the big cat with a satellite tracker. He's also shot a polar bear for science.
This allowed researchers to tag and track the arctic bear. No beast is safe from an armed Vladimir Putin. He shot an endangered grey whale with a crossbow from a motorboat, again to help researchers track the animal.
Putin stares down a young chick at an Agricultural Exposition. Here Putin goes on an expedition to inspect the snow leopard's habitat. He snagged this fish on the snow leopard expedition.
He also has found ways to help scientists tag creatures without shooting them. Here he feeds a Beluga whale name Dasha. Here he is, attaching a satellite tracking device to Dasha shortly after.
He also attempted to help endangered Siberian cranes begin their migration routes by assisting them with a motorized hang glider. It was altogether unsuccessful due to strong winds. Putin takes in the scenic Siberian wilderness while shirtless on a horse. Vladimir Putin again eschews a shirt while hiking along the Siberian Khemchik River in the summer.
Still, there's a lot more to Putin than shooting animals with tranquilizer guns while shirtless. Putin tickles the ivories for a crowd at the Theatre of Nations in Moscow.
Putin is also a man of science. The hunt was "successful," given that Putin found two amphorae that were placed there by the archaeologists before hand. Here Putin hikes beyond the Arctic Circle to meet with scientists measuring the impacts of global climate change. There's also a softer side to the Russian President. Here, Putin strokes a two-month-old tiger cub he received as a birthday present at his Novo Ogaryovo residence outside of Moscow.
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