A picture depicting Vladimir Putin in full makeup has been banned in Russia.

The picture is cited on the Russian justice ministry’s list of banned “extremist” materials – a list that is 4,074 entries long. No 4,071 states that the poster, depicting Putin with painted eyes and lips, implies “the supposed nonstandard sexual orientation of the president of the Russian Federation”.

It’s unclear exactly which image the ministry is talking about – but it is believed to be similar to one used on signs during protests against Russia’s anti-gay laws. It turns out there are quite a lot of photoshopped images in circulation that depict Putin in drag.

В РФ признали экстремистским плакат с накрашенными Путиным и Медведевым https://t.co/HhJvROd6Bl — Gordonua.com (@Gordonuacom) April 5, 2017

Photoshopping makeup on to images of Putin has been common since Russia passed a law banning gay “propaganda” in 2013.

According to the Moscow Times, the ban came as a result of a verdict by a regional court in May 2016. A man named AV Tsvetkov uploaded the image alongside others that portrayed Putin and the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, in Nazi uniforms. Court documents say he also shared racist images. The court banned about a dozen of the pictures he uploaded between June 2013 and October 2014. As well as this, his Vkontakte profile was deleted.

A quick search of the Russian social media site shows some users are sharing similar images of Putin despite the ban. On Twitter, users were similarly amused.

Russia has just banned Putin in drag pics! You can be put in prison.



R E T W E E T ! ! ! ! ! ! pic.twitter.com/csmWLVuPk6 — 🏳️‍🌈LGBT+Proud🏳️‍🌈 (@LGBTPlusProud) April 6, 2017

This 'Putin as a gay clown' image is now illegal in Russia, so please do not share it, nope https://t.co/fsWFyqCihR pic.twitter.com/qcX9BYZq97 — Xeni Jardin (@xeni) April 6, 2017

The Kremlin press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told the state-run news service Tass that he had not seen the image. Claiming Putin was “quite resilient to these vulgarities”, he said: “Our legislation has, so to say, a certain code defending a citizen’s honour and dignity, including those of the president. Individuals need to be guided by these norms, so unfortunately, I can say nothing.”

Earlier this week, Putin defended China’s censorship of the internet. He said: “Callous quasi-freedom on the internet does not exist anywhere any more.”

