Trump and Putin's faces melded together on Time cover

The image gracing the cover of the upcoming issue of Time is both unfamiliar and strangely recognisable.

That is because it is a composite photo of US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The controversial cover is intended to draw attention to Trump's "puzzling affinity for Russia".

It followed the bizarre press conference given earlier this week by Trump and Putin in Helsinki.

The cover story from the typically non-partisan Time discussed a fear gaining ground in Washington – that Trump has been compromised by the Kremlin.

"That's how a press conference sounds when an asset stands next to his handler," former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele tweeted afterwards.

High-ranking Democratic congressman Adam Schiff called Trump's press conference "a stunning betrayal of the country".

"Whether there is this kompromat (compromising material) on the president, we don't know… but he certainly acts like a president that is compromised," he told MSNBC.

"He acts like the Russians have something on him.

"If he were a long-time asset of the KGB…his Russian handlers would be telling him, 'Wait, wait, slow down Mr President. You'll give yourself away'."

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The KGB is the former security agency of the Soviet Union, where Putin worked as a spy in East Germany in the 1980s.

This week's Time cover was created by Nancy Burston, one of the pioneers of computer generated positing technology.

"The combining of faces is a different way for people to see what they couldn’t see before," Burston said of her cover.

"I think the best art can change people’s perception of how they see how they are as human beings."

She developed a technique to age faces, used by police around the world to find missing children.

It is the second inflammatory Time cover featuring Trump this month.

On July 2 the magazine published an image of the president looking down on a screaming toddler with the headline "Welcome to America".

Read more: Child wails at Trump's feet on Time cover

The cover was intended to draw attention to the Administration's policy of putting migrant children in detention separated from their parents.

While the two-year-old girl who inspired the photo was not separated from her mother, the cover galvanised the already growing opposition to the White House's stance on immigration.

By the time the magazine hit newsstands, the policy had already been rescinded, though many children remain separated from their parents weeks later.

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