Putin stares down caged snow leopard

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stood meters away from a snow leopard in his latest stunt involving a threatened animal but insisted on Monday he was just an "ordinary guy" in touch with Russia's problems.

Putin knelt meters away from the snow leopard, kept in a wire-mesh enclosure, as the animal warily eyed him in Siberia, television pictures showed.

The close encounter with the creature - one of the mascots for the 2014 Sochi Olympics championed by Putin - helped further burnish his tough-guy image ahead of 2012 presidential elections.