I did say that it was the kind of thing Vladimir Putin would do

Back in the general election campaign, when Joseph Muscat was at great pains to show us how much time he spent in the gym, even inviting the television cameras in and answering interviewer’s questions while sitting on a bench-press, I wrote that it was exactly the kind of thing Vladimir Putin would do, to cultivate the right-wing strongman image that goes down so well among unsophisticated and uneducated people like those of Malta and ex-Soviet Russia.

Putin had been photographed in Ironman poses at the edge of freezing water with his top off, and similar.

Now the Kremlin has released photographs of him working out in the gym and they have made the headlines in the democratic world – but not for the reasons he intended.