The Russian president was pictured attending a funeral of a top politician with his nuclear football at his side.
On April 8, Russia’s Vladimir Putin attended the funeral of a far-right politician and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow.
Throughout the service, the president, who has been facing opposition from all sides after waging war on Ukraine and its democracy, was flanked by his security personnel.
As eagle-eyed viewers quickly spotted, Putin attended the open-casket ceremony with his nuclear briefcase close to his side at all times.
The believed nuclear football was carried throughout the ceremony by one of the president’s closest staff who kept his distance from Russia’s leader at a minimum.
It has since also been revealed that the entire cathedral was emptied of mourners – including the deceased politician’s family members – before Putin walked in.
“For Vladimir Putin, the hall where people bade farewell to Zhirinovsky was completely emptied of people – even from relatives on chairs,” Telegram channel VCHK-OGPU reported.
Amid fears of a potential assassination attempt, the Russian president walked into the empty cathedral and placed a bouquet of red roses on the casket, signed a cross, and bowed before swiftly walking away.
The funeral of Zhirinovsky, who died of Covid at the age of 75 shortly after revealing when the Russian invasion of Ukraine will begin, came at the time Russian troops heartlessly bombed a Ukrainian railway station and killed at least fifty civilians in the process.
The airstrike on the Kramatorsk’s station left at least one hundred civilians wounded, whereas lifeless bodies, children’s prams, and abandoned luggage were seen in graphic images of the aftermath of the attack.
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