Russia has banned a picture depicting President Vladimir Putin in heavy makeup as "extremist."

Russia's justice ministry added the image, which depicts the Russian president in lipstick and mascara, to its list of banned extremist material last week.

The Vladimir-Putin-as-a-gay-clown meme appeared after Russia introduced a controversial "gay propaganda" law in 2013.

The meme produced a host of images, and was even played on by Scottish brewery Brewdog for a special edition beer called "Hello my name is Vladimir."

According to the description posted on the justice ministry's register, the ban applies specifically to a picture posted on Vkontakte, a Russian social network, that is intended to represent "the supposed nonstandard sexual orientation of the president of the Russian Federation" and carries the caption: “Putin voters... they say there are lots of them, but there aren't any among the people I know.”

The picture was one of several posted by a man called Alexander Tsvetkov which were banned by a court in Tver, a city northwest of Moscow, in May last year.

The "gay propaganda" law, which bans the promotion of homosexuality to minors, was criticized as state-sponsored homophobia and a sop to extreme a conservative constituency.