Russian president Vladimir Putin likes to come across as a tough guy. He saved researchers from a (tame) tiger. He rode a horse bareback (by which we mean shirtless). And he is so confident in his own strength and public support that he has dissidents -- journalists and politicians, alike -- killed.

 

But the mighty Putin can't handle those memes of him in drag queen make-up. It upsets his fragile ego so much that such images have been listed as "extremist" material in Russia and are now banned.

 

The DragPutin image first appeared when Russia passed its infamous "gay propaganda" law, which made it illegal to publicly refer to homosexuality in a positive way. 

 

The Kremlin tried to downplay Putin's hypersensitivity by saying he had nothing to do with the decision.

 

Kremlin press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, argued that Putin was "quite resilient to these vulgarities."

 

He added: "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....”

 

We all know Russia has no freedom of the press, so we can't say the ban on DragPutin is a big surprise.