Russia's Putin sexy, but not that sexy: Magazine

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker, said he was taken aback by the result.

"Putin is way better than Nemtsov," he said. "He's one of the sexiest politicians in the world." His looks may be average, he conceded, but his "decisive, harsh and unbending" character makes him extremely attractive.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov laughed in an embarrassed fashion, and said it was hard for him to comment.

The magazine's online blog — which opens the voting up to the general public — shows a rather different picture, giving Putin a narrow lead over Ilya Yashin, who leads opposition party Yabloko's youth movement. Former Economy Minister German Gref comes in at third, while four of the lesser-known entries garner no votes at all.

A black belt in judo and an accomplished skier, ex-KGB spy Putin has been snapped in an array of macho shots, from flying a fighter jet to strutting his stuff on a nuclear submarine.

Within days of the publication of photos last summer — where a bare-chested Putin was snapped fishing, horse riding and off-roading in a sport utility vehicle — the then-president was claimed by some as a gay icon, and local newspapers received a flood of excited letters on their websites from admiring women.