Vladimir Putin has reappeared after vanishing for almost two weeks as fears of World War III grow and Moscow starts building mobile nuclear bomb shelters.
The Russian president was pictured in a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov in Moscow today.
Mysteriously, Putin had not been seen in public since he congratulated a ‘courageous’ Donald Trump on his election victory while attending the Valdai Forum in Sochi on November 7.
His disappearance came as the Kremlin formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.
The move followed U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russian territory with American-supplied longer-range missiles.
Ukraine subsequently used US-supplied ATACMS missiles to destroy a Russian ammunition arsenal in Bryansk region on Tuesday.
Kremlin security council deputy Dmitry Medvedev – Russia’s president from 2008-2012 – has bluntly warned that a nuclear World War III could be triggered.
He said on Tuesday: ‘The use of the Alliance missiles in this way can now be qualified as an attack by the bloc countries on Russia.
‘In this case, the right arises to launch a retaliatory strike with weapons of mass destruction on Kyiv and the main NATO facilities, wherever they are.
‘And this is already World War Three.’
Meanwhile, as fears of a larger scale war grow, it emerged Russia has begun making mobile bomb shelters that can protect against a variety of threats including shockwaves and radiation from a nuclear blast.
The emergency ministry’s research institute said the ‘KUB-M’ shelter could offer protection for 48 hours against these and other natural and man-made hazards.
Among those it listed were: explosions and shrapnel from conventional weapons; falling debris from buildings; dangerous chemicals and fires.
The £300,000 ‘KUB-M’ looks like a reinforced shipping container and consists of two modules – a room for 54 people and a technical block. More modules can be added if needed, the institute said.
‘The mobile shelter is a multifunctional structure that provides protection for people from various threats, including natural disasters and man-made accidents,’ the research institute said, calling it ‘an important step towards improving the safety of citizens’.
The production of the new bomb shelter has not been linked to any current crisis.
Speaking during Putin’s disappearance, Faridaily Telegram channel, which monitors his movements and appearances, said: ‘Where Putin is in these anxious days, when the war with Ukraine is entering a new round of escalation, and what he is doing, apparently only his security and a small circle of close associates know.’
The channel claims a succession of one-to-one Putin meetings shown to Russians on state TV channels were in fact pre-recorded – or ‘canned’ – as long as two months ago.
Putin’s AWOL period also covered an alleged phone call between Putin and Trump, which the Kremlin later strenuously denied.
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