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An ailing warlord pal of Vladimir Putin appeared to be in a bad state when he turned up at the Russian dictator’s inauguration in Moscow today (May 7). The bloated Chechen maniac Ramzan Kadyrov, 47, struggled to walk up the steps into the Kremlin for the ceremony, and then had difficulty getting his coat off. The dad-of-15 needed help from his ally Adam Delimkhanov, 54, a Russian MP, and an aide to sort himself out. It was the first public sighting of Putin lackey Kadyrov in Moscow since reports emerged last month that he was terminally ill, suffering from “pancreatic...

Polish director Besaleel’s film will feature an AI-rendered Russian president and footage shot by Ukrainian film-makers during the Russian invasion. The “world premiere” of a new biopic of Russian president Vladimir Putin featuring an AI-rendered central character, has been announced for 26 September. In a statement released via PR Leap, Polish studio AIO said the film, titled Putin, will be released in 35 countries, and describes itself as “up close and personal with the Kremlin leader’s story”. -snip- Originally titled The Vor in Law (a term used for elite organised crime figures), the film also incorporates footage shot by Ukrainian...

Tens of thousands of residents in the Russian city of Orenburg and neighbouring Kazakhstan have been told to evacuate immediately as flood waters inundate homes. -snip- Orenburg is home to half a million people, and the city's mayor Sergei Salmin said the situation was extremely dangerous. "Over the last 10 hours, the water level in the Ural River has risen by 40cm … these levels are dangerous," he wrote on the Telegram messenger app. He called on residents to gather essential items and to abandon their homes. Emergency workers said water levels in the Ural River were more than two...

Watch footage of the bizarre tanks ploughing through the battlefield. PUTIN'S failing forces have resorted to using bizarre mobile sheds on the battlefield in an attempt to withstand Ukrainian kamikaze drones. Russian tanks have appeared underneath turtle shell-like cages after it was revealed that a humiliated Putin has lost almost all of the tanks he had when he began his brutal invasion of Ukraine. Strange footage shows a row of ageing Russian tanks trawling through fields under the steel covers. The odd-shaped metal blanket appears to be designed to shield Putin's dwindling fleet from Ukrainian onslaught. Up close clips show...

Russians left homeless following floods have directed their frustration towards President Vladimir Putin and local officials. Over a hundred individuals sought aid from Putin on Monday after the city or Orsk was struck with the worst flooding ever recorded, expressing their discontent with local authorities whom they accuse of insufficient assistance. An emergency was declared in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan, as the Ural River, Europe’s third longest, surged several meters in mere hours last Friday, breaching a dam embankment in the city. Large portions of Orsk, situated 1,800 km east of Moscow with a population of 230,000, now lie...

Residents in a region hit by the deepest drone strikes within Russian territory since the start of the war in Ukraine have been warned that air defenses may not be able to protect them from future attacks. Since the start of its full-scale invasion, Russia has been hit with drone strikes reaching Moscow as well as ammunition depots and warehouses around the country linked to the war effort. Russian authorities blame Ukraine for the attacks, which Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for. In the latest incident, a drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan on Tuesday reportedly hit industrial areas...

Putin Re-Elected in Historic VictoryPutin reportedly secured a monumental win with 87% of the vote, becoming Russia's longest-serving president post-Stalin.Remote electronic voting sees a world record 94% turnout, according to the territorial Election Commission.Source:… pic.twitter.com/LwfcBenHZZ— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 17, 2024

Vladimir Putin's military is unlikely to use its prized T-14 Armata tank in combat in Ukraine because it is "too valuable," an ally of the Russian president said. The comments were made by Sergey Chemezov, the CEO of Rostec, the country's state-owned defense conglomerate, in an interview with Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti, published Sunday. Moscow is reported to have briefly deployed several of the main battle tanks for combat operations in July 2023, before they were withdrawn from the front line. The tank was once labeled by a senior British army official as "the most revolutionary tank in...

Russia has approved a temporary ban on the export of gasoline, a representative for the country's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told local media on Tuesday. Beginning May 1, Russia will impose a six-month ban on gasoline exports to allow the country to "offset the booming demand for petroleum products," the official told Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in an internal letter in January, publication RBC reported. Fuel shortages have been reported nationwide in Russia, which is one of the world's biggest producers of oil and gas. Wholesale fuel prices have soared across the country, and Ukraine has ramped up...

Vladimir Putin taunted the West by taking a joyride in a modernised supersonic Tu-160M strategic nuclear bomber today - as the Kremlin threatened nuclear war. The despot's stunt - which lasted around 40 minutes - appeared to be intended to enhance his macho ratings as he stands for re-election next month -snip- Putin was seen taking off in Kazan a day after he visited a factory in the city where the Tupolev bombers are manufactured.

Ivan Sechin, the son of Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, died on February 5 at the age of 35, it has been reported. -snip- The VChK-OGPU outlet, which purports to have inside information from Russian security forces, also reported on Sechin's death. Citing an unnamed source, it said that at approximately 4.30 a.m. on February 5, Sechin "complained that he felt bad and was suffocating." "The man fell on the bed and lost consciousness. Those around him carried Ivan to the floor and tried to provide primary resuscitation measures," the Telegram channel said, adding that an ambulance...

Tucker Carlson defended on Monday his decision not to question Russian President Vladimir Putin about allegations that the Kremlin has ordered assassinations of political dissidents. "Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others," the former Fox News host said. His comments came during a discussion at the World Government Summit in Dubai that touched upon his interview last week with the Russian leader. The interview, taped on February 6 and aired two nights later, has made international headlines for numerous statements made by Putin, including his supposed rationale for invading Ukraine. During the Dubai summit, Egyptian journalist Emad el-Din...

Russian police have put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister and members of the previous Latvian parliament on a wanted list, according to the Russian Interior Ministry's database. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kallas was wanted for the "desecration of historical memory". Russian state agency TASS said the Baltic officials were accused of "destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers", acts that are punishable by a 5-year prison term under the Russian criminal code. -snip- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: "This is only the beginning." "Crimes against the memory of the world's liberators from Nazism and fascism must...

Kremlin-controlled media corrected a mistake that Vladimir Putin made about World War II in his interview with Tucker Carlson. Interjections by the former Fox News anchor during his interview released on Thursday were also cut, it was reported, and a version viewed online omitted a controversial segment in which the Russian president spoke about Adolf Hitler. The fallout from the interview continues as the American anchor faced criticism that he did little to challenge the Russian president, especially during monologues about Russian history that he used to justify his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In one part of the interview, Putin...

Over the past few months, a Russian political scientist named Valery Solovei has stoked a global frenzy with a sensational claim: that Vladmir Putin died last year and today is represented in public by a body double. The Kremlin’s elite, Solovei tells his half-million online followers, controls the double and has stuffed Putin’s body in a freezer. Then on Thursday, journalist Tucker Carlson aired a two-hour interview with Putin. Solovei shrugged it off as a sham. Carlson, he said, interviewed Putin’s doppelgänger, who will now be passed off as real to millions of viewers in the West. “Putin is dead,...

Russian forces are contending with Ukrainian "gamers" using first-person-view (FPV) drones across the front line against Russian strongholds, a top Russian official has said, as uncrewed vehicles gain an ever higher profile in the 23 month-old war. Ukrainian unmanned vehicle operators carried out a "continuous raid" on Russian positions for several days at an undisclosed location along the front line, said Dmitry Rogozin, former head of the Russian Space agency, who is now a Moscow-installed official in the annexed Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine. "In four hours, 24 FPV drones flew to the stronghold of only one of our volunteer...

For a microcosm of how the war in Ukraine has warped Russia’s economy, look no further than a carton of eggs. The grocery staple has been in short supply in recent months and prices have skyrocketed, prompting Russians from Belgorod to Siberia to form lines reminiscent of Soviet times. President Vladimir Putin has publicly apologized, blaming the egg shock on the government. Last month, a poultry-farm boss known as “the Egg King” survived an assassination attempt shortly after authorities started investigating his farm due to high prices. Behind the soaring price tag—up around 60% in December from a year earlier,...

Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, thanked his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, for supporting the Kremlin's war in Ukraine, South Korean news outlet Yonhap News has reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lavrov hosted Choe on Tuesday to discuss bolstering ties amid reports of an arms cooperation deal between Moscow and Pyongyang. His comments underscore the Kremlin's increasing dependence on North Korea for weaponry.

North Korea's foreign minister lauded comradely ties with Russia on Tuesday and then held rare talks in the Kremlin with President Vladimir Putin, who has been invited by Kim Jong Un to visit the reclusive nuclear-armed country. -snip- Earlier on Tuesday, during her talks with Lavrov, North Korea's Choe hailed progress on implementing agreements struck during Kim's visit to eastern Russia last September. "The fact that now the foreign ministers of the two countries often meet and deepen comradely ties is yet more proof that the Korean-Russian friendly relations, with a long history of friendship and tradition, are energetically moving...

A politician bidding to run against Vladimir Putin in Russia's upcoming presidential election described the decision to go to war in Ukraine as a "big mistake" in comments to the wives of soldiers on Thursday. Boris Nadezhdin, representing a centre-right party called Civic Initiative that has no seats in parliament, is seeking to gather the necessary 100,000 signatures from people across Russia to enable him to stand against Putin. -snip- Nadezhdin has promised to present a plan for ending the conflict. Last week he also aimed sharp criticism at the authorities over heating outages that have struck parts of Russia...