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Vladimir Putin is feeling the stress from Russia's invasion of Ukraine - as he is seen wringing his hands in a meeting with his top officials after Volodymyr Zelenskyy's troops bit back and made a counter-incursion into the country. The dictator, 71, was in a security council session on the crisis he faces due to Ukraine's dramatic invasion of the border areas of Kursk region. His very public hand-wringing and fidgeting came as he was told earlier this week about how Russia had lost territory to Kyiv troops and - at the time - more than two dozen settlements, a...

Putin has appointed his ex-bodyguard, who is considered a likely successor for the Russian leader, as an 'angel of vengeance' tasked with trying to reclaim the territory seized by Ukraine. Former bodyguard Alexei Dyumin, who once single-handedly scared off a bear from the president's mountain residence, will lead the charge on 'Operation Revenge' to reclaim the 386 square miles of Russian soil now under Ukrainian control. Dyumin, 51, grew up in the Kursk region, where a state of emergency was implemented almost immediately after thousands of Kyiv's troops surged across the border and began seizing territory. Putin has now chosen...

VLADIMIR Putin has reportedly called in his ex-bodyguard to lead the desperate defence of Kursk as Russian casualties pile up on their own turf. Ukraine last week stormed into Russia and is said to have taken out so many enemy troops that they can't even be taken to morgues and identified. In response, a shocked Vlad has given the reins to his trusted old bodyguard, who once claimed he saved him from a rampaging brown bear. Alexei Dyumin, 51, is now coordinating the defence ministry, security agencies and regional authorities in the rush to save Russian regions from Kyiv's forces....

Russian President Vladimir Putin's meeting with an ally of the Wagner Group signals his struggle to address setbacks in the Ukraine conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking decisive steps to address growing challenges as he seeks to regain control over his struggling military campaign in Ukraine. On May 2, Putin met with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Russia's Tula Oblast, and a known associate of the Wagner Group, at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in Moscow Oblast. The meeting has raised questions about the stability of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's position, signalling Putin's increasing desperation in the face of unmet...