Putin Pictured With Nuclear Briefcase During Surprise Visit To Eastern Ukraine
Vladimir Putin was pictured holding a nuclear briefcase while making a surprise visit to eastern Ukraine last week, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The surprising visit came sometime last week as the 70-year-old Russian leader flew to the Ukrainian city of Kherson via helicopter to visit Russian troops fighting on the frontlines.
According to the Sun, heavily-edited footage of Putin’s visit was released by the Kremlin on Tuesday.
Although it is unclear exactly when the visit took place, sources suggested it was sometime before the Orthodox Easter holiday on Sunday.
"The Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation visited the headquarters of the Dnipro grouping of troops in the Kherson direction and the headquarters of the Vostok National Guard in the Luhansk People's Republic,” the Kremlin said in a statement alongside the footage released on Tuesday.
Even more surprising were photographs of the Russian leader exiting his helicopter in Kherson while holding a briefcase that was later confirmed to be the Kremlin’s nuclear briefcase – the Cheget.
Like the “nuclear football” used by the president of the United States in the case of a potential nuclear attack, the Cheget is reportedly kept under 24-hour surveillance by Russian armed guards and has a personalized key code known only to Putin and a small number of Kremlin officials.
The appearance of the nuclear briefcase during Putin’s recent trip to Kherson, as well as Putin’s recent decision to execute nuclear air drills in eastern Ukraine, has caused concern that the Russian leader may be preparing to escalate the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Putin also recently positioned ten aircrafts capable of carrying nukes in Belarus.
"We agreed with [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko that we would place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the non-proliferation regime," Putin told the Russian press in March.
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The possible escalation to nuclear war in Ukraine also comes shortly after U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines predicted Moscow would grow “even more reliant” on nukes due to the fact the Russian military is being “crushed.”
“We do think that could be the case in the event that he perceives that he is losing the war in Ukraine,” Haines said in March regarding the possibility of Putin using nukes against Ukraine.