VLADIMIR PUTIN’S A tough guy, right? (According to his official photographer he is – see here).

So a tough guy needs a tough interviewer to nail him down with the hard questions. Naturally, any news organ’s first choice to interview the Prime Minister of Russia would be… model Naomi Campbell.

GQ magazine hired Campbell to quiz Putin on his fitness regime, swimming the butterfly stroke, bikers and “big, strong women”. It might not be such a weird choice of interviewer – Campbell does spend a lot of time in Russia with her billionaire boyfriend Vladimir Doronin. And according to an interview she gave to Oprah last year, the woman has a pretty hardcore exercise regime herself. She eats no gluten, no meat and does gyrotonics in the gym.

Naomi didn’t let us down in her Putin quiz. Thanks to her incisive style, we discover that:

• Putin wants to save tigers, black bears and white bears from extinction;
• He likes the university students who posed for rival calenders for his 58th birthday: “I like the girls a lot, they’re beautiful”;
• He once broke a finger exercising as a student;
• He likes swimming butterfly when he’s in the Dead Sea because the water is so cold.

Softie.

Read the full and may we say, riveting, interview at GQ here>