VLADIMIR PUTIN has resorted to an age-old trick to capture the voters’ imagination: sexing up the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, with an array of glamorous new female recruits.

Ahead of this month’s rigged parliamentary elections, Putin was reported to have complained that there were not enough beautiful women in his United Russia party. The error was soon corrected with a platform of stunning ladies, including four former athletes who have starred in topless photoshoots and Svetlana Zakharova, the elegant principal ballerina of the Bolshoi.

Top debutante among the new Duma intake (already being described as “Putin’s babes”) is Svetlana Khorkina, 28, a leggy blonde who was a seven-time Olympic medal-winning gymnast. She caused a scandal when she appeared nude in Playboy magazine with her unashamed “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” approach.

“I changed people’s attitudes,” she said. “It’s very good to be sexy.”

Svetlana Zhurova, 35, a former Olympic speed-skating champion, also stripped for a men’s magazine, hiding her breasts modestly behind her skating boots. She said she chose to go into politics to promote sport and youth. “Youth is our future,” she gushed.

Alina Kabayeva, 24, a curvaceous rhythmic gymnast, has been pictured seminaked in a fur rug. Natalia Karpovich, 35, a boxer and bodyguard before she entered politics, has also appeared in a magazine wearing only her boxing gloves.

Putin, who is due to step down as president in March but will remain the power behind the throne, caused a flurry of excitement among Russian women last summer when he posed shirtless on a fishing trip to Siberia.

The photoshoot went down well with the voters, who returned United Russia with 64.1% of the vote, but raised hackles among his opponents. “Putin’s behaviour is becoming increasingly irrational,” said Boris Berezovsky, the exiled tycoon living in London.

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