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One key sign shows Vladimir Putin has been rattled by Ukraine’s shock incursion across the Russian border into Kursk, a long-time Russia correspondent claims.
Writing for The Times, veteran journalist Nataliya Vasilyeva said the 71-year-old Kremlin leader tends to only do spontaneous meet and greets with supporters when he’s in need of political validation.
A similar set piece saw Putin stopping his motorcade in the middle of the small town of Torzhok, northwest of Moscow, to meet a strategic place crowd of supporters, four days armed terrorists launched a wave of slaughter at a concert hall in the capital, killing 145 people on March 22.
Ms Vasilyeva said Putin’s trip out of Moscow on Tuesday was a similar attempt to reassert his control, after Ukrainian troops launched a lightning incursion into the Kursk region, taking control of some 500 square miles of territory, according to Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Ms Vasilyeva suggested his public outings are at pains to suggest that nothing out of the ordinary is occuring, and take place at carefully chosen locations.
She noted that Putin has never visited the site of the concert hall attack or met survivors and victims’ families, and has made only scant reference to Ukraine’s Kursk incursion – describing it as a “situation”.
He’s also yet to address the nation on the attack, despite reports of nearly 200,000 people having to be evacuated from the Kursk and Belgorod regions of Russia.
Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky said the incursion was carried out to form a permanent buffer zone and prevent further attacks by Vladimir Putin’s army across the border.
It’s thought the attack also aimed to divert Russian troops away from the frontlines in Donetsk, where they continue to make substantial gains.
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said Moscow was not ready to conduct peace talks with Ukraine at the moment, given Kyiv’s attack in Kursk, while Ukraine has demanded a full withdrawal of Putin’s army from its territory before it will take part in talks.
Meanwhile, as Moscow reels from the Kursk attack and a drone assault by Ukraine on the capital this week, Russia’s military said it had captured the town of Niu-York in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
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