Vladimir Putin and the rise of the 'short kings'

 Vladmir Putin will be hoping to make a big impression on the world stage this week and counter his status as an international pariah in the West by hosting the Brics summit of emerging economies in Kazan.

The Kremlin has called it one of the "largest-scale foreign policy events ever" to be held in Russia, but with the likes of Indian PM Narendra Modi also in attendance, the Russian president will be far from the only diminutive strongman present.

'Napoleon complex'

 To understand why his height deserves attention, "one has to understand the significance of Putin's cult of personality in cementing his rule" said the Kyiv Post.

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Over the years Putin has sought to portray a tough-guy image in a series of infamous photoshoots, but "even the best publicity stunts cannot alter reality – or in this case, Putin's average height".

 He is "famously self-conscious about his height", said The Express, which reported that the Russian premier was left "red-faced" in 2015 when aides forgot to tell a group of women invited to the Kremlin not to wear high heels, leaving several of the guests "towering over" him.

He is officially 5ft 7in tall, but  the paper estimated he could in fact be as short as 5ft 2in. Like his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Un, Putin has been photographed wearing heeled shoes to boost his elevation.

The Russian leader's detractors abroad have also "seized on his size", reported The Times.

In 2014, the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky described Putin as a "schizophrenic of short stature" for taking Russia and Ukraine to the brink of war. After Russia's full invasion began in 2022, the Tory MP Julian Lewis told the House of Commons that Putin was "firmly in the grip of small-man syndrome".

Accusations that he suffers from "Napoleon complex", acting aggressively in an attempt to compensate for his diminutive height, might be "overly simplistic and potentially problematic", psychologist Emma Kenny told The Sun. Yet "height can play into how a leader is perceived, especially when they're interacting with taller counterparts on the international stage".

'Short kings'

 "In politics, height matters," declared The Economist in 2020. US presidents are "becoming taller relative to average Americans". And research suggests that "long-limbed politicians outperform their stumpier rivals" in the polls because "taller people enjoy higher self-esteem, on average, and are perceived to be healthier, more intelligent and more authoritative".

Trump (6ft 2in, according to his driving licence, even though he claims to be 6ft 3in) was prone to taking a pop at shorter political leaders, but Putin is in surprisingly good company on the world stage.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva measure just over five-and-a-half feet, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy are all between 5ft 6in and 5ft 7in. Keir Starmer leads the pack at just 5ft 8in, half an inch taller than the global male average height.

 The idea that height is bound up with leadership and masculinity is "looking increasingly shaky" as older "notions of patriarchy wobble" and a "new generation of short kings rise", said The New European.

For Maureen Dowd in The New York Times, "true stature" is more than physical measurements. While Putin has always been "puffing out his bare chest on horseback; fishing shirtless in Siberia; winning staged judo and hockey displays", Ukraine's president Zelenskyy "understands that stature is not about phony macho photo shoots".

"Stature is a physical quality," Dowd concluded, "but, more important, it is a human and moral quality."

"We all – pundits, politicians, the public – should try to stifle the notion that tallness grants superiority and shortness is a shortcoming," wrote Gideon Lasco, professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines, in Sapiens. "By participating in a politics of diminution, we diminish our politics."