President Trump is heading to his New Jersey golf club for vacation — oops! It’s not a vacation, he says. Over the upcoming 17 days he will be working. Besides, the West Wing will be undergoing some major renovations, and much of the staff has left the White House.

Trump, if you recall, criticized Barack Obama for all his golfing vacays. So he insisted that he would be working:

Working in Bedminster, N.J., as long planned construction is being done at the White House. This is not a vacation – meetings and calls!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2017

Okay, that’s fair. Even Chris Cillizza at CNN urged critics to let the guy have some off time:

Generally speaking, I think “the president is taking a too-long vacation” is a dumb storyline. Presidents — of both parties — deserve some down time. Whether they play golf or clear brush in their free time, it’s fine with me! We all need a little break.

Ah, but someone else is throwing shade at the vacationing Trump, and that’s Vladimir Putin.

Putin himself took a little vacation in the wilds of southern Siberia last week — swimming, hiking in the forests, spearfishing, and riding a quadricycle in the mountains. In other words, Putin did guy things. He also went shirtless much of the time.

Eh, I know, it’s Putin being Putin. So what else is new?

True. However, the timing of this little exposé of Vlad’s manly ways is quite interesting.

Putin was on vacation a few days ago, but the Russian news agency TASS is reporting it just now. Furthermore, the Kremlin will release video footage on Monday, and then on its website. Just in time for the world to have a gander at the masculine Russian president while also seeing images of our more portly president in his golf cart. Coincidence?

So why is Putin engaging in what amounts to a passive-aggressive diss of Trump? After all, aren’t Trump and Putin BFF’s, if you believe the popular media wisdom (which, yes, I know is an oxymoron)?

Eh, they’re not exactly buds. Trump placed new sanctions on Russia’s oil and mining industries for allegedly meddling in our elections. And while he was quite irritated about Congress’s push for his signature, the President also said:

“I also support making clear that America will not tolerate interference in our democratic process and that we will side with our allies and friends against Russian subversion and destabilization.”

Moscow protested. Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev tweeted this in English, in order to send a message to American readers, and called Trump “weak:”

The Trump administration has shown its total weakness by handing over executive power to Congress in the most humiliating way

— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) August 2, 2017

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin headed to the wilds of Siberia, took loads of pictures on his vacation, and released them at a favorable time.

Putin knows that Trump loves to act like the tough guy, but so does Putin. And this is the wily Russian’s sly way of digging at the tubby Trump, and showing the world just whom the real “Manly Man” is in both leaders’ quest to be Top Dog.