Rumours have spread through Russia that Vladimir Putin will soon make ‘key decisions about launching a tactical nuclear strike’ from a secret bunker.
The Kremlin leader has reportedly warned his closest family – including gymnast partner Alina Kabaeva – of the possibility of rapid evacuation to the mysterious location.
Putin – who will be 70 on Friday – believes the bunker to be ‘safe’ from Western attack.
Top officials from his security team could move to the bunker with him, according to the General SVR channel.
Since the beginning of the war, the anti-Kremlin outlet – which claims inside knowledge from Putin’s circle – has fuelled rumours he is suffering acute health problems.
Among its latest extraordinary claims is that he has been taking advice from shamans as he contemplates launching nuclear missiles.
It comes after Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov urged Putin to deploy ‘low-yield’ nukes.
The Russian president has previously threatened to use ‘all the means at our disposal’ if his country is threatened.
President Volodymyr Zelensky warned last week that he didn’t think the Kremlin was ‘bluffing’ over the threat.
But defence secretary Ben Wallace played down the prospect.
He told a fringe meeting of the Tory party conference that although the use of nuclear weapons was in the Russian military doctrine, it would be unacceptable to Moscow’s allies India and China.
But Retired Major-General Jonathan Shaw has said otherwise.
If it becomes clear Russia cannot win the war in Ukraine, he says ‘inevitable defeat’ could spur on Putin.
‘He is changing the rules of the nuclear age’, the veteran told MailOnline.
The exact whereabouts of Putin’s bunker is unclear, but it’s said to be a ‘long way’ from Moscow.
He is believed to have several bunkers in Siberia, one linked to the massive new liquid case terminal at Sabetta on the Yamal peninsula and the other in the Altai Mountains.
‘Relatives and friends of the heads of state will be delivered to the bunker in advance,’ stated a report from the General SVR channel today.
‘Alina Kabaeva with [the couple’s] children and two older daughters with children and cohabitants were warned about the possibility of urgent evacuation.
‘But not everyone in the leadership of Russia was lucky.
‘For example, Putin ordered, in the event of a nuclear threat, to evacuate the ‘necessary minimum’ of Russian officials”’
This would include prime minister Mikhail Mishustin, and the speaker of parliament Vyacheslav Volodin.
The supposed evacuation includes his eldest daughter Maria Vorontsova, 36, a geneticist, and Katerina Tikhonova, 35, a high-kicking ‘rock’n’roll’ dancer-turned-mathematician with their spouses and children.
But an unacknowledged Putin ‘love child’ Luiza Rozova, also known as Elizaveta Krivonogikh, 19, is not invited to the bunker.
Rozova is the daughter of cleaner-turned-multimillionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh, 47, now part-owner of a major Russian bank, one of the country’s wealthiest women with an estimated £74 million financial and property fortune.
No senators are on the bunker list, the Telegram channel has claimed.
Rumours swirled at the start of the war that Putin had retreated to a bunker in Siberia.
One special bunker is rumoured to fit up to 100,000 people, and is designed for him to rule Russia in the event of Armageddon.
As well as a location close to a major Gazprom facility in the far north of Russia, there is also rumoured to be a hi-tech bunker in the Altai Mountains hidden beneath a large dacha.
Putin is said by General SVR to have spent recent days in Siberia since his illegal annexation of swathes of eastern Ukraine.
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