Russian state TV has branded British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as the "new Iron Lady" after she was seen riding a tank close to the country's border.
Moscow had called former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher the Iron Lady 45 years ago - a nickname that stuck and she used to her advantage.
The intended insult comes amid high tension between the West and Russia, and follows the Tory minister’s blunt warning to the Kremlin against making a “strategic mistake" by invading Ukraine.
Moscow reacted to her “provocative” images atop a British army Challenger 2 tank close to the Russian border in Estonia.
One broadcaster even appeared to question her sanity with an offensive slur mentioning her mental health.
Footage from state-controlled Channel 1 shows presenter Anatoly Kuzichev informing his viewers: "There is a new Iron Lady in British politics.
"UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss had a ride on a tank in Estonia.
"During joint drills in the Baltics, Truss claimed she wants a world where democracies prosper - not just survive.
"Apparently a tank ride, even (in Estonia), promotes prosperity."
The broadcast used a Telegraph video showing Truss but overlaid it with the music Entry of the Gladiators by the Czech composer Julius Fucik, a melody associated with circuses - to introduce the clowns.
The attack came on TV talk show Vremya Pokazhet -translated into English as Time Will Tell .
In 1976, hardline Soviet newspaper Red Star branded Tory leader Margaret Thatcher the “Iron Lady” but the author military journalist Yuri Gavrilov later admitted his planned biting insult had spectacularly backfired.
A week after the publication, Thatcher told a constituency event: ”I stand before you tonight in my Red Star evening gown, my face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved, the Iron Lady of the Western world."
She was delighted, she said, if the tag "Iron Lady" was how the Soviets "wish to interpret my defence of values and freedoms fundamental to our way of life”.
Three years later she swept to power in her historic 1979 General Election victory, making her the UK's first female Prime Minister.
Diehard communist Gavrilov’s aim had been to “cut her down to size”, he said after his retirement, but the opposite happened.
"I thought - 'Knight in Skirts" but it sounded too clumsy," he said.
Racking his brains, the Iron Chancellor - Germany's Otto von Bismarck - came to mind.
"Finally, I thought of 'Iron Lady' - and the rest is history.
"I hit the nail right on its head, didn't I?”
Kuzichev suggested the images of Truss on a tank were an upgrade on Boris Johnson at the Peppa Pig “fun fair”.
Another presenter on the show Artyom Sheynin returned to the tank theme in describing the Truss trip to Estonia.
"Things got a bit too much for the British foreign secretary, who said 'leave me alone', jumped into a tank and started driving towards the Russian border,” he said.
"Of course, she was stopped by the Estonians, barely after 150 metres. You know, who knows what she might have done?”
His rant went on: ”I can understand that her nerves are giving way. She probably doesn't know herself what's going on.
“First, there's war, then there isn't, first [the Russians] are massing forces, then they're not. Nothing is clear.
"And this is the same girl who was concerned about stability on the European continent."
Official Kremlin daily newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta also mocked the Foreign Secretary’s tank ride.
"The Englishwoman was unable to come up with anything better than to ride around in the Baltics - in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s border - in a British Challenger 2 tank and make new threats against Moscow," it stated.
The Moscow reaction seems to show Ms Truss cutting through with the Russians.
She had warned Putin over Ukraine: “We have seen this playbook from the Kremlin before when Russia falsely claimed its illegal annexation of Crimea was a response to Nato aggression.
“Nato is an alliance forged on the principle of defence, not provocation. Any suggestion that Nato is provoking the Russians is clearly false.
“Any action by Russia to undermine the freedom and democracy that our partners enjoy would be a strategic mistake.”
