Vladimir Putin's awkward reaction goes viral after Xi Jinping calls him his 'dear friend'

People are laughing at Vladimir Putin's reaction after the Chinese premier Xi Jinping called the Russian dictator his 'dear friend'.

The Chinese leader is visiting Moscow at the moment with talks held between Russia and China, Xi has styled himself as a would-be peacemaker but said their countries had a 'no limits friendship'.

Putin needs all the friends he can get at this point after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest regarding war crimes in Ukraine and it looks like China is one of the only ones he's got.

The ICC claims that Putin's regime has been unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine's territory into Russia, Putin's regime denies this.

China is officially neutral on the topic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine but Xi has been criticised by the US for providing 'diplomatic cover' so that Russia can commit further war crimes.

Twitter/@Gerashchenko_en

On his visit to Moscow the Chinese premier called Putin his 'dear friend', but the Russian dictator looked significantly less than enthusiastic to hear this as he sat there glumly.

Putin's awkward reaction has gone viral as the internet didn't want to miss a chance to mock the Russian leader and poke fun at him.

People were quick to notice Putin's glum response to the declaration of friendship from the leader of a neighbouring, significantly richer and much more powerful country that wasn't currently humiliating itself on the global stage.

One person said the Russian president's face 'shows how much he hates needing Xi', while another said 'Xi understands that he owns him, Putin has figured that out as well'.

Others said Xi's declaration that Putin was a 'dear friend' was 'spoken in true mafia form' and came with heaps of subtext.

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Someone else responded with an utterly disturbing cartoon of a shirtless Xi breastfeeding a baby Putin and while I understand the point it is making, my life would have been just fine without having that image seared into my brain.

Other cartoons drew Xi and Putin as Winnie the Pooh and his little buddy Piglet, a depiction which is bound to go down poorly in China since Xi is apparently a bit tetchy over the idea that he looks like Winnie the Pooh, even though he kind of does.

One of the comments said Putin was 'feeling what it's like to be a Lukashenko in life', referring to the Belarusian leader often seen as having his rule propped up by Moscow.

More joked that Putin's body double needed to give a better performance following suspicions that the Russian dictator is either in poorer health than he lets on or actually dead.