Tough-guy Vladimir Putin calls Leonardo DiCaprio ‘a real man’

Not everyone gets to be called a “real man” by Vladimir Putin himself.

But Russia’s tough-guy Prime Minister awarded that honour to Hollywood heart-throb Leonardo DiCaprio, whose plane had to make an emergency landing on the way to a summit on tigers in Mr Putin’s native Saint Petersburg.

Mr Putin was reading from prepared remarks on tigers when he suddenly spotted the Titanic star in the crowd.

The Russian leader then revealed an uncanny knowledge of Mr DiCaprio’s difficulties in getting to the conference and described him as a hero who made the tiger cause proud.

“I would like to thank you for coming despite all the obstacles,” Mr Putin told Mr DiCaprio, who also pledged $1 million to the campaign to save tigers from extinction.

“A person with less stable nerves could have decided against coming, could have read it as a sign that it was not worth going,” Mr Putin said during an extended departure from his address.

The Russian Prime Minister said Mr DiCaprio had “literally torn his way through to Saint Petersburg”, calling him “a real man” (or muzhik) for his persistence. Mr Putin’s comments were briefly interrupted by shouts of bravo! from the audience, forcing a brief smile and acknowledgment from the film idol.