According to the British "Daily Mail" local time on February 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently only took trains when traveling in China. Previously, he usually flew on planes that took off directly from the Kremlin.
However, Putin is not very willing to disclose the picture of himself riding on the train, in fact, the last time he sat in the train to take pictures was 11 years ago. Although it is a long-range photo, it can be clearly seen that the "tough guy president" at that time was quite young.
British newspapers cited an investigation by independent Russian media outlets whose authors claimed that Putin's growing reliance on rail traffic had something to do with his avoidance of being tracked and his fear of being targeted by missiles.
"After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Putin began to use [armoured] trains very actively, especially when he went to his residence in Valdai," the report reads.
Valdai is a city between Moscow and St. Petersburg, and according to the British media, Putin has a three-story "official villa" in a forest there, covering a large area, including a living room of 500 square meters alone and an indoor pool length of 25 meters.
In the manor there are stables, golf courses, VIP restaurants with cinemas, bowling alleys, billiard rooms and much more. "By Putin's standards, the main house is quite plain, but the privacy is good enough."
It is reported that in order not to attract attention, the special train that Putin is riding on is not much different from other trains, and it is difficult to detect from the appearance, of course, this is a camouflage, to avoid being discovered by people who plot against each other.
Since it is a special train of the President of Russia, then naturally something special will also be added, it is reported that there are radio antennas for special communications, fixed on the roof of some carriages, covered by shells.
And due to the weight of the armor on the carriage, it also strengthens the axles, like a heavy freight train. It needs three engines at the front and one at the rear.
It is reported that Putin's special train usually stops at the "VIP area" of the Kalanchyovskaya railway station in central Moscow, which is separated by a high fence and reinforced with barbed wire.
The three places Putin often goes to have also built special railway stations to make his travel smoother. There is a station near the official residence in Nova Ogarevo, just outside Moscow, and a special station in the southern resort city of Sochi. There is also the aforementioned Valdai, which not only has a train station, but also a helipad.
But if he were to go abroad, Putin would have to fly, such as when he visited Belarus in mid-December, he flew on the IL-96-300PU, his exclusive plane.
But in order not to create danger, at that time three Il-96s took off from St. Petersburg almost simultaneously (supposedly to get away from the borders of Ukraine) and flew into the airspace of Belarus almost simultaneously.
It has been almost a year since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and Putin has gone abroad a total of three times so far, namely Tajikistan, Iran and Belarus.