Putin taunts the West by taking a flight in Russian nuclear bomber

Vladimir Putin taunted the West by taking a joyride in a modernised supersonic Tu-160M strategic nuclear bomber in the present day – because the Kremlin threatened nuclear struggle.

The despot’s stunt – which lasted round 40 minutes – seemed to be supposed to reinforce his macho scores as he stands for re-election subsequent month, and distract consideration from the ‘homicide’ of opposition chief Alexei Navalny in an Arctic jail.

But by flying in a kind of warplane that has been used to wreak havoc in Ukraine with standard weapons, he was sending a message that he intends to maintain preventing in Ukraine, which he invaded nearly two years in the past.

And the massive Tu-160M – aka White Swan – is a key a part of his nuclear strike power at a time when the Kremlin is bluntly warning the West over the danger of nuclear struggle.

Putin was seen taking off in Kazan a day after he visited a manufacturing facility within the metropolis the place the Tupolev bombers are manufactured.

He clambered up a ladder on the manufacturing facility to go contained in the airplane and spent ten minutes within the cockpit.

He then made the choice to fly himself in one among his bombers – his first flight since he took to the sky in a Tu-160 in 2005.

The big swing-wing airplane is a considerably modernised-version of a Soviet-era bomber that the USSR would have deployed within the occasion of a nuclear struggle with the West to ship nuclear weapons at lengthy distances.

The TU-160M is able to carrying 12 cruise missiles or 12 short-range nuclear missiles and might fly 7,500 miles continuous with out re-fuelling.

The electioneering stunt got here lower than per week after a person who wished to oust him as president – Navalny – was ‘murdered’ inside his bleak Arctic jail.

Even although the March election is anticipated to be rigged in Putin’s favour, he’s at present extra seen on state TV than he has been for years.

A breathless report on Putin-controlled Russian state TV mentioned: ‘We simply noticed that the president [Vladimir Putin] once more, for the second time in two days, climbed into the cockpit of a Tu-160 strategic bomber.’

On the tarmac, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned Putin had ‘decided to take a flight. There will likely be a flight [with Putin] now.’

Putin later emerged from the Tu-160M to hail the improved plane – the mannequin by which he had flown – as appropriate for the Russian air power.

‘The expertise is superb. It will be accepted into the Armed Forces,’ he mentioned.

His stunt got here after the deputy head of the Russian safety council lately warned that Putin might bomb London, Washington, Berlin and Kyiv within the occasion of setbacks within the struggle with Kyiv leading to a retreat by Moscow’s forces.

Today he doubled down on this warning to the West, saying that Russia is even able to beginning nuclear struggle accidentally.

Medvedev additionally accused Western leaders of not taking the risk severely.

‘Sad as it could sound, this [nuclear war] situation is actual,’ mentioned the Putin lackey and – from 2008 to 2012 – the previous president of Russia.

‘We should do the whole lot we will to stop it from taking place. But this very clock, which is ticking in a sure route, has now accelerated very a lot.

‘And on this I additionally see the lack, excuse me, the impotence of those Western authorities.

‘[They] preserve saying the identical factor: ‘No, it is the Russians who’re scaring us, they are going to by no means do it’. ‘They’re flawed,’ he mentioned ominously.

‘If it involves the existence of our nation, and I mentioned this lately, what alternative is left for the [Russian] management, for the pinnacle of state? None.’

He harassed: ‘So that is, sadly, an actual risk, a direct and clear risk to all of humanity.

‘And secondly, there are additionally accidents, from which nobody is immune. And the unintentional, unintentional begin of a nuclear battle can’t be discounted.

‘So all these video games round Ukraine are extraordinarily harmful.’

The US has warned allies that Russia is creating a space-based nuclear weapon designed to destroy western key satellite tv for pc networks.

Such a weapon would wreak havoc with Western satellite tv for pc communications, GPS, area surveillance and navy command operations.

The Tu-160 strategic bomber is understood to NATO as Blackjack, and might carry two dozen missiles with a complete payload of 45 tons.

The Mach 2 bomber has a variable-sweep wing of the integral low-wing scheme, and a most takeoff weight of 275 tons.

The nuclear bomber dates from the Sixties however state managed Russian TV reporting Putin’s Kazan go to eulogised the airplane’s potential and claimed it was ‘a expertise that lots of Russia’s rivals have been unable to repeat’.

Rossiya 1 channel advised its viewers that the plane was ‘the world’s largest warplane and quickest bomber’.

Channel One declared: ‘This plane proper now could be about 50 years forward of the whole lot else.’

Putin named the brand new airplane he clambered aboard after the primary president of the Tatarstan area, Mintimer Shaimiyev.