...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...with Adolf Hitler
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days as a politician somebody doesn't like...
deepened when the Russian president responded with his own withering assessment of the heir to the throne.
Asked about the prince's alleged remarks, Putin said they were unacceptable and wrong and "not what monarchs do".
And he would know...
The fallout from the comments, supposedly made during a private conversation during a royal tour of Canada, now look likely to cast a shadow over an event next month in Normandy to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, which both Prince Charles and Putin are due to attend.
At a presser in St Petersburg, Putin said of the incident: "It reminds me of a good proverb: 'You are angry. That means you are wrong'."
The prince is understood to have made his comments to museum volunteer Marianne Ferguson, 78, after she told him her Jewish family fled the Nazi occupation of Danzig during the second world war. Drawing a parallel with Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March, he reportedly said: "Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler."
In his response, Putin said: "Give my words to Prince Charles. He has been to our country more than once, if he made such a comparison, it is unacceptable and I am sure he understands that as a man of manners." He added: "I met him personally, as well as other members of the royal family. This is not what monarchs do.
"But over the past few years we have seen so much, nothing surprises me any longer."