Nickie Muir: That Putin machismo gets me

One of the various shirtless poses of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the internet.

I love Vladimir Putin's hyperbolic machismo. It's like every 70s cop-show star had love children and fed them on a diet of steroids and Viagra and made the Russian President. He takes short guy syndrome to comic lengths and, if it weren't for his repression of dissidents, I'd almost like him.

It takes a certain kind of psychopath to invite someone like Angela Merkel round to your house to discuss your finances, knowing she has a pathological fear of dogs " and then call your pet Labrador into the meeting to see how that works out.

People who need personality number plates or have giant images of themselves hanging in their houses are obviously in deficit in genuine self-esteem or character but Putin's catalogue of shirtless poses with a variety of dead animals or phallic machinery manages to delight and disturb in equal measure.

My personal favourite is photos of him flying in a micro-light with endangered orphaned cranes leading the way on their migratory path. The cute sentence acknowledging that more than a few of the endangered species were killed or permanently injured in getting the shot impresses me more. Putin " in other words - doesn't seem like the kind of guy who cares much about what other people think or say or for that matter do.

He doesn't look like he'd give a rat's if anyone were, say, cross with him for annexing a nation and he'd be slow to forget a slight.

Which is why when the EU said last year it was going to show him how cross it was over the Ukraine by putting trade sanctions in place on Russia and Murray McCully, staying in with the boys' club, stepped in behind to say "me too", Putin must have been really scared.

After all, New Zealand imports $500 million worth of fuel from Russia and exports about $150 million in dairy. He must be losing sleep right now.

Still, the sanctions have provided creative collaborative thinking with China in the dairying industry. A new joint Russian-Chinese 100,000 cow dairy unit will step up to supply the Russian market with milk and cheese and provide a ready market for feed from Russia to supply the year-round housed animals. According to the UK Farmers Weekly, just one of these units will supply 30 per cent of their previous exports to Russia.

At this point, our foreign policy is feeling like when my four foot nothing Nana refused to buy French champagne or perfume after those Frenchies bombed that poor hippy boat and that nice photographer.

I hope that hurt the French and taught them that international terrorism doesn't pay but, somehow, I doubt it. Our foreign and trade policies look increasingly like pitches to play with the big boys when we have always punched above our weight when we remain neutral and independent. Our foreign policy of flying with the flock could have made our dairy industry the injured cranes - collateral damage in a snapshot of Putin's machismo.