The Putin shirtless challenge is the ice bucket challenge of Russia

They say he’s more than a man but less than a god. When they say this, of course, they’re talking about Vladimir Putin — king of the shameless outdoor bare-chested, dad bod(ish) photo.

Here he is, for example, flipping a judo opponent (without a shirt on); riding a horse (without a shirt on); swimming butterfly (without a shirt on) and tanning by a lake (without a shirt on). (In fairness, the last two make some shirtless sense.)

Previously, it was just something Putin caught a lot of shit for, but now it’s this summer’s Russian equivalent of the Ice Bucket Challenge. In that Pavel Durov, the founder of the social networking sites VKontakte (a Russian Facebook of sorts) and Telegram (a messaging app seemingly best suited for affairs), recently posted a Putin-esque photo of himself with the hashtag #PutinShirtlessChallenge:

My instagram had to seriously step up the game to keep up with the increased competition from Mr. Putin’s shirtless photos. If you’re Russian, you have to join #PutinShirtlessChallenge (or face oblivion). Two rules from Putin – no photoshop, no pumping. Otherwise you’re not an alpha.

A post shared by Pavel Durov (@durov) on Aug 14, 2017 at 12:52pm PDT

After which, a large number of his followers have done the same—adding an authoritarian twist to #freethenipple. You could say they’re “putin’” themselves out there for all the world (and Putin himself) to see.

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