The Terror of Flying. Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, “Vladimir Putin has increasingly traveled not in presidential planes, but in a passenger train…
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The Terror of Flying. Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, “Vladimir Putin is no longer traveling in presidential planes, but in a special armored personnel carrier.” This is supported by an investigation by the Dossier Center, an investigative project founded by former Russian oligarch and opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The investigation
According to the investigation, citing a source close to the Russian presidency, “The train was prepared for the president in 2014-2015, but the head of state started using it in the second half of 2021, when the Russian army began to use it constantly preparing for the invasion of Ukraine. The company that owns the train belonged to the nephew of Yuri Kovalchuk, the main shareholder of Rossiya Bank and a close friend of the president».
Putin and farewell to flights
After the war broke out, “in February/March he started to use the train very actively, especially to reach his residence in Valdai,” the source told the Dossier Center. According to the investigation, the choice of the armored train is determined by reasons of security and “secrecy”: the movements of the presidential plane can be monitored using various services, while there are no services of this type for trains. Putin’s is “hardly distinguishable from the other trains on the Russian railways visually,” but in any case “there are many differences: First, the presidential carriages are armored. Secondly, it has “top priority” over the rest of the rail traffic, “so that it can run at maximum speed and without intermediate stops”.
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