Putin Wrestles Whale Into Submission With Headlock

The Russian superman's latest triumph

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s strange macho compulsion to dominate wildlife has emerged again, this time in the form of a bizarre stunt in which he dived into the sea off Russia’s Pacific coast to engage in life-or-death hand-to-fluke combat with a whale.

The 57-year-old KGB veteran donned a brightly-coloured leotard - complete with a fearsome-looking squid mask - to enrage the whale, and had himself fired at it by a deck-mounted catapult as it leapt out of the water.

Mr Putin firmly slapped the whale on the jaw as he flashed past its ten-foot long face, before splashing down yards away. As the whale crashed back into the water, he took a huge gulp of air and dived in search of his krill-munching quarry.

Observers reported a mighty churning of the waters as the two evenly-matched protagonists wrestled for dominance of the seas. Several minutes passed before the whale burst out of the sea again, with the Russian leader’s brawny arm clamped firmly round its neck. Mr Putin gasped for breath, before disappearing in a wall of spray. However, after a few more minutes the beaten, headlocked whale floated gently to the surface, flapping the surface of the ocean three times with its fluke to signify submission.

An exhausted but triumphant Mr Putin clambered from the water, announcing: “I win great victory today for Russian peoples. Now I king of the whale, in addition to master of the polar bear and lord of the tiger. What mighty creatures bow to puny pencil-necked President Obama? Gopher? Skunk? He not even bring down docile bison.”