World leaders poked fun at Russian president Vladimir Putin’s macho image as they met to agree more sanctions over his brutal war in Ukraine.
‘Shall we take our clothes off?’ Boris Johnson asked in a sweltering venue at the G7 summit in Germany. ‘We have to show we’re tougher than Putin.’
Citing the dictator’s topless photos, Canada’s Justin Trudeau said: ‘We’re going to get the bare-chested horseback riding display.’
The prime minister told him: ‘There you go! We’ve got to show them our pecs.’
Even strait-laced EU president Ursula von der Leyen joked: ‘Horseback riding is the best though.’
But their dark humour came on yet another day of horror as a Kyiv nursery was hit when the capital was targeted for the first time since June 5.
Rescuers were struggling to reach survivors in the rubble after 14 missile strikes.
Putin’s forces also captured the city of Severodonetsk and renewed attacks on Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, damaging a nuclear research facility.
‘It’s more of their barbarism,’ US president Joe Biden (pictured) said.
‘We have to stay together because Putin has been counting on that somehow Nato and the G7 would splinter. But we haven’t and we’re not going to.’
Ukrainian deputy prime minister Dmytro Kuleba said after the missile attack: ‘The G7 summit must respond with more sanctions on Russia and more heavy arms for Ukraine. Russia’s sick imperialism must be defeated.’
The leaders agreed an embargo on imports of Russian gold as they began their three-day summit in the Bavarian Alpine resort of Schloss Elmau.
They were expected to sign off on indefinite support for Ukraine as the war enters its fifth month.
Mr Johnson said the Russian leader must be stopped, telling CNN: ‘If we let Putin get away with it and just annex, conquer, sizeable parts of a free, independent, sovereign country, the consequences for the world are absolutely catastrophic.
‘Sometimes America is asked by the world to step up, and America is still the last, best hope of peace and freedom.’
Putin, 69, has repeatedly stripped off his top in photos while riding horses or shooting bears in the Russian countryside to boost his macho credentials.
In 2018, he insisted: ‘When I am on vacation I see no need to hide in bushes. There is nothing wrong with that.’
Mr Johnson and Mr Trudeau bantered later over whose plane was smaller.
‘I saw Canada Force One — it’s a big plane,’ Mr Johnson said. ‘It’s not quite as big as yours,’ Mr Trudeau replied.
‘No, ours is very, very modest,’ Mr Johnson insisted.
Labour’s Chris Bryant called the PM ‘slightly deranged’, adding: ‘There comes a point at which your narcissism and your hubris are so flagrant you become a national embarrassment.’
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