After being announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) as having the biggest percentage of adult smokers, Russia has resorted to a strange tactic to deal with the issue, shaming smokers while taking a jab at US President Barack Obama.

According to WHO, more adults smoke cigarettes in Russia than in any other heavy-smoking country, and their average life expectancy is one of the shortest among former Soviet countries.

With a population of over 44 million adults, or almost 40 percent of the population, Russia has the biggest percentage of adult smokers among the 14 countries WHO has surveyed in a poll presented at a Moscow conference Tuesday.

Some 400,000 to 500,000 Russians a year die from smoking-related causes, 17 percent of the country's annual mortality rate, a co-author of the WHO report, Oleg Storozhenko, told the Moscow conference.

Meanwhile, in a display of Russian sense of humor, bus stop posters have surfaced depicting a digitally altered Obama picture showing him deeply smoking a cigarette, the Daily Beast reported Thursday.

“Smoking kills more people than Obama, although he kills lots and lots of people. Don’t smoke, don’t be like Obama,” the poster reads.

In a Facebook post, Russian MP Dmitry Gudkov apparently said he was “disgusted and ashamed” with the use of the American president’s face to shame Russian citizens and persuade them to abandon a habit that kills half a million of them a year.

Alexander Lyakhovich, a public health researcher with the Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy, blames widespread tobacco advertising, as well as the promotion of smoking in movies and TV programs, as main contributors to the high smoking rate.

Obama famously gave up smoking in 2010, but has admitted to "falling off the wagon" several times after entering the White House.