The bunker used by Vladimir Putin during the pandemic has become so famous that the Russian president has a nickname: the grandfather in the bunker. After a few months it turned out that there were two bunkers, that anyone who wanted to visit Putin had to undergo a long quarantine and pass through a disinfecting corridor before entering their room. fIt was the moment that Putin’s obsession with security became apparent, even if it wasn’t born with the pandemic. With the start of the war against Ukraine, the President has begun to take new precautionary measures. Security measures are not openly discussed, little is known about the President’s life, very little about his movements. Often unannounced, if not imminent, even the trip to Volgograd a few weeks ago was sorely kept secret until the anniversary of the Stalingrad victory. The Russian President stopped taking the presidential plane to move around Russia, preferring to travel by train: the difference is easy to understand, the first is understandable, the second is not. Dossier Center, the investigative journalism project founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has found that Putin has started changing his travel plans since Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border. Putin’s train looks similar to Russian Railways trains, gray with a red stripe, but the main carriages are armored and topped with antennas. The fact that Putin opts for rail also has an impact on the organization of the entire railway, because the president’s train makes no stops, travels quickly and always has priority.
The bunker used by Vladimir Putin during the pandemic has become so famous that the Russian president has a nickname: the grandfather in the bunker. After a few months it turned out that there were two bunkers, that anyone who wanted to visit Putin had to undergo a long quarantine and pass through a disinfecting corridor before entering their room. fIt was the moment that Putin’s obsession with security became apparent, even if it wasn’t born with the pandemic. With the start of the war against Ukraine, the President has begun to take new precautionary measures. Security measures are not openly discussed, little is known about the President’s life, very little about his movements. Often unannounced, if not imminent, even the trip to Volgograd a few weeks ago was sorely kept secret until the anniversary of the Stalingrad victory. The Russian President stopped taking the presidential plane to move around Russia, preferring to travel by train: the difference is easy to understand, the first is understandable, the second is not. Dossier Center, the investigative journalism project founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has found that Putin has started changing his travel plans since Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border. Putin’s train looks similar to Russian Railways trains, gray with a red stripe, but the main carriages are armored and topped with antennas. The fact that Putin opts for rail also has an impact on the organization of the entire railway, because the president’s train makes no stops, travels quickly and always has priority.
Inside there is a bedroom, a conference room, a carriage for his companions, one for the car and one for communications. In 2012, when he rarely used it, the Russian President also had himself portrayed in his carriage at his desk, but it was only years later that he chose the train as his safest mode of transport and, according to the Russian press, the medium was also revolutionized. The train is dismantled and reassembled before each journey, the carriages are changed and dismantled. It is known to exist, but no longer appears in photos. According to the Dossier Center, it’s not from Russian Railways, but the president would have relied on the Grand Service Express, a company linked to Yuri Kovalchuk, a friend of Putin’s, who was identified as one of the few authorized to to visit him during the trip pandemic. According to some information, it is not known how exactly, the two spent their detention together discussing the history and role of Russia in the world, and during these talks the plan to invade Ukraine would have become more concrete. In the past year, Putin canceled a number of important appointments, direct contact with citizens, the hockey game on Red Square and the annual speech to parliament. This is not a custom, but a constitutional obligation.
On February 21, just days before the anniversary of the attack on Ukraine, he will finally address his deputies and announce the direction in which he intends to take the war. There are few optimists, the Russian President has no desire for peace and is looking for victory, even if it is empty, even if it consists of rubble and ghost villages. Instead of speaking in the Kremlin, where the speech has been held so far, Putin chose to perform at Gostiny dvor near Red Square and perhaps this change also has to do with his obsession with security. Putin’s commitments are being announced less and less If he postponed a number of annual appointments, it was also for security reasons – hardly because he was afraid to speak in front of the Russians. Every leader must exercise caution and look out for their own safety, but Putin is beginning to fear Ukraine’s operations, which have shown they can penetrate Russian territory with precision and depth.
This week came a video from Putin escorted to the bathroom by six guards: He doesn’t feel safe in the Kremlin, he doesn’t feel safe in the skies over Russia, on planes and on Red Square, let alone in a toilet. The other famous Russian associated with the armored train was Lenin, he used it to enter Russia and there are people in Moscow who hope that one day Putin’s train will be used to take the President so far as possible away from Russia Kremlin.