Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both headed off for their August vacations this past week with relations between their two countries not going along as swimmingly as both world leaders had hoped.

But while Trump will spend the next two weeks luxuriating in the surroundings of his New Jersey golf club — apparently doing nothing more physically strenuous than heaving himself in and out of a golf cart — Putin was roughing it in the Siberian wilderness.

Photos released by the Russian news agency TASS show the 64-year-old Putin, often shirtless, as he gets rugged in the remote Tuva region of southern Siberia Aug. 1-3. The photos show Putin hiking, fishing, swimming and scuba diving in a very icy but pristine-looking lake. When Putin chooses to a don shirt, he goes with tough-guy camouflage gear.

The images are the latest from the Kremlin that seek to portray Russia’s autocratic leader as an adventurous and rugged outdoorsman and athlete, Time said.

The White House hasn’t yet released any photos of President Trump while on vacation. But it’s not likely they could issue any — certainly none of the president shirtless — that would allow Trump to measure up to Putin’s he-man aesthetic.

This raises the question of whether this was the Kremlin’s intention in releasing the photos — to make Putin look physically and mentally tough as relations between the United States and Russia deteriorate.

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Just before the two world leaders headed off on their respective vacations, Congress passed a bill that imposed fresh sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential election. With the bill enjoying majority, bi-partisan support, Trump had no choice but to sign it into law.

The move prompted Putin to retaliate by ordering the American diplomatic mission in Russia to reduce its staff by 755 employees. The New York Times said these measures were the harshest such diplomatic move since a similar rupture in 1986, in the waning days of the Soviet Union.

Through a spokesman, Putin didn’t seem to blame Trump for not reining in his legislators. He agreed with Trump’s Twitter lament that the relations between the two Cold War foes had reached “all-time and very dangerous low.”

That statement is a far cry from how Putin and Trump spoke glowingly of a chance for improved relationships when they got chummy at the G-10 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

But is Putin really letting Trump off the hook so easily for how he’s not letting him have his way with the U.S. government?

Putin’s latest shirtless vacation photos suggest otherwise, given that this is one of his trademark propaganda moves. Whenever possible, the former KGB agent and reported billionaire likes to cast a tough image of himself in the minds of the world.

If nothing else, Putin roughing it on vacation certainly presents a contrasting image to Trump, who was caught on video Saturday gatecrashing a wedding at his New Jersey Trump National Golf Club.