The dictator lives in hiding, bunkers himself in his residences – but travels back and forth by train.
Warmonger Vladimir Putin (70) drives his own armored train on a specially built rail network with stations near his homes.
This is reported by the investigative portal “ Proekt(“Project”), which in December 2022 had already uncovered Putin’s secret bunker network: an extensive chain of secret bunkers up to 200 meters deep, stretching from Moscow to the Urals and still being expanded.
Shortly before the start of the war in autumn 2021 – when his army was already moving towards the Ukrainian border – Putin started moving around in the armored train, writes “Proekt”. Since the invasion, he has been driving it more and more often, especially to his favorite home in Valdai, 400 kilometers north-east of Moscow.
Why is Putin traveling in an armored train?
The train has an advantage over the plane that is important to it: unlike planes, train journeys are not so easy to track from the outside. And: the rest of the way to his houses is shorter.
Drinking tea undisturbed on the train: Putin probably does that more often on the railway line built especially for him (here 2009)
“All the main residences of Vladimir Putin were connected to the railway lines, and secret railway stations were built near them,” writes “Proekt” on its Telegram portal.
From the outside, the armored train is said to resemble an ordinary train, except that it has six axles instead of four and carries special equipment on the car roof. Cost of the train (without rails): Estimated at one billion rubles, that would be around 12.7 million euros according to the official exchange rate, as well as “ The Dossier Centerwrites the research portal run by Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The armored train is luxuriously equipped: it has a bedroom and a workplace, as well as a car for secure communications and, of course, cars for the escorts.
The platform has identified at least three locations that are connected to the secret network: A guarded train station, including a helipad, is located in Valday National Park, and according to satellite images, another was created in 2015, just 400 meters from Putin’s official residence in Novo-Ogaryovo in the Moscow Oblast. From 2017, a terminal station was built in Sochi on the Black Sea, almost 1400 kilometers south of Moscow.
