Most big grizzly bears could turn you into a carcass as fast as you could say… vegan. But if you had your money bet on a bear eating alive a colossal Russian bodyguard in a fight to the death, you would find yourself out of pocket.

When he’s not allegedly meddling in foreign affairs and invading Ukraine, President Putin seemingly has a fondness for big hairy animals. In fact, there have long been rumours that Putin actually likes to tame and ride bears in the Ural Mountains during his spare time in between rigging American elections and leading an indestructible army of Russian bots to global annihilation.

But while the Russian President may be the very definition of masculinity, one thing that he is not, is invincible, especially to a homicidal bear that wants to maul him to death.

That is exactly the situation that the President found himself in one evening according to Alexei Dyumin, a former personal bodyguard to the Russian President. Dyumin who was on night duty protecting Putin found himself suddenly face to face with an enormous bear standing at the glass door of the presidential residence where the President was sleeping.

"We looked each other in the eyes, he stepped back a bit. I opened the door and unloaded the entire cartridge of my pistol under his legs," the bodyguard said as he recounted his standoff with the mammoth bear just meters away from the sleeping Russian President.

Faced with the prospect of dealing with a bloodthirsty Russian with a loaded gun, the bear retreated back into the wilderness, no doubt with his tail in between his legs.

"I felt pity for the bear." the Russian bodyguard boasted, as the grizzly bear disappeared into the night.

Waking up the next day and unaware that he could have been moments away from being bear cuisine, Putin praised the heroic bodyguard for his bravery in saving him from a total bear-grilling.

In 2022, as Russia continued its deadly attack on Ukraine, an old picture showing Vladimir Putin riding a bear was recirculated on social media. While the picture in question was proven to be doctored, for years there have been rumours that the Russian President loves nothing more than to ride and wrestle the untamed beasts.

In an interview with NBC, Putin was once asked what he thought about leaked topless pictures of him while he was on vacation and the rumours of him riding bears.

“I’m relaxing. There are many photos of me at work, but no one cares about them. I’ve seen pictures of me riding a bear, but I never did it. But such images do exist,” Putin replied.

While the erotic sight of rugged and virile Vladimir Putin shirtless and riding atop a mammoth bear conger up homoeroticism images of a bad 1870s gay porn film, the Kremlin continue to promote such images in order to bolster the 70-year-olds masculine image.