Even President Barack Obama has weighed in on Putin’s bizarrely earnest machismo. “My sense is that’s part of his shtick back home politically as wanting to look like the tough guy,” Obama said in an interview with NBC Thursday. But vanity clearly plays a role. A few years back, Russia’s Sex and the City magazine ranked Putin second in its annual “Sexy Rating” of Russian politicians. The opposition leader who ranked first? He was later sentenced to 15 days in jail for “disobeying police” at a rally.

Putin in the Tuva region of Siberia on Aug. 15, 2007.