Putin dons his military fatigues to visit Zapad war games 500miles from the frontline – while his troops blow up blocks of flats in Kharkiv

Vladimir Putin wore his military fatigues on Tuesday at a visit to the Zapad 2025 war games around 500miles away from the nearest frontline.

Elsewhere, in Kharkiv, east Ukraine, his troops unleashed a drone strike on a residential area of the city, according to the prosecutor’s office, leaving four injured. 

One missile could be seen spiraling through the air in a video before it desecrated a building, leaving it in a ball of flames. One educational facility was also hit by a drone. 

Aerial footage also showed harrowing scenes of a property missing most of its roof as firefighters inspected the scene.

In the Nizhny Novgorood region, the Kremlin leader, 72, chose to wear the army  uniform and a pair of Strekoza tactical glasses ahead of US President Trump’s arrival at Windsor. 

He avoided travelling to the frontline, unlike Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who regularly wears military uniform and appears alongside his combat soldiers.

The last time Putin donned a uniform in March 2025 he was derided with commenters claiming it was a body double.

The Zapad-2025 war games are seen as a show of strength by the Kremlin to the West, and Putin thanks foreign observers and participants.

‘I would like to thank you for your participation,’ Putin told foreign observers and participants at the war games.

The games in Belarus, includes military exercises which are said to be a defensive response to a hypothetical response to a Western invasion. 

‘I hope it was useful from a professional point of view [and] from the point of view of restoring a high level of trust between our countries,’ Putin said. 

He boasted that the practice for attacking, what would be in effect Nato, ‘taking place at 41 training grounds.

‘100,000 servicemen are participating, about 10,000 weapons and equipment systems.’

Putin gloated of the participation of 333 tactical aviation strategic aviation aircraft and military transport planes.

‘More than 247 surface ships, submarines and support vessels are also used.

‘Twenty-five foreign delegations have arrived to participate in the events of the 2025 exercise.’

It comes as military experts warned NATO must take Russia’s recent drone incursions into Europe or risk invasion. 

Last week, Russia tested the military alliance’s resolve with intrusions into NATOs airspace in eastern Europe last week.  

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon OBE, a former British Army colonel, told the Daily Mail that he has ‘no doubt’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin will keep going.

Poland called the intrusion a deliberate provocation, as Russia insisted it had not targeted objects in Polish territory. 

European allies have rushed to organise an ‘Eastern Sentry’ mission, bolstering the eastern frontier with greater materiel.

‘NATO has suddenly woken up – or finally woken up,’ said de Bretton-Gordon. ‘We played lip service to the peace dividend… really giving the impression to Putin that we weren’t that bothered and we didn’t care. 

‘So in a way, it is slightly our own fault. We’ve got to show resolve now, otherwise he will keep going.’

Between 19 and 23 drones entered Polish airspace on September 9, with NATO scrambling a multinational force of jets to shoot several down. 

Romania then accused Russia of breaching its airspace on September 13, as Latvia reported a drone crashing in its east. 

On Monday, Poland said a civilian drone flown over its presidential palace was another ‘provocation’. Two Belarusians were arrested.

The incursions have prompted calls for tangible support to Ukraine and the neighbours to its west. 

Poland’s foreign minister said NATO should start shooting down Russian drones and missiles over Ukraine, a sentiment echoed by Zelensky since the start of the war.

‘I’ve been calling for a no-fly zone in Ukraine against civilian targets and I believe NATO should do that,’ de Bretton-Gordon said. 

‘That sort of resolve will show to Putin that we are really, really serious here, and I don’t think we should be cowed by Medvedev and Peskov threatening World War III if we do that sort of stuff.’

He said NATO continues to have the upper hand against Russia. European NATO countries alone have over 150 F35 stealth jets, which ‘vastly overmatch anything that Russia has’.

Natia Seskuria, international security expert and Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said it was worth noting recent incursions would coincide with the Zapad drills happening in from September 12 until 16. 

She also noted Russia ‘does not have the capacity that they used to have before the war in Ukraine’.

‘We know that Russia has used these drills to sort of test different war game scenarios,’ she said.

‘In 2008 against Georgia and then against Ukraine, Zapad drills preceded the actual military operations, the wars that Russia has launched against these countries.’

‘The scale is much more reduced. But it’s also an opportunity for Russia to basically test different scenarios, as I mentioned, and also to demonstrate to the West that they are still committed to their plans, which include, of course, primarily winning the war in Ukraine.’

Both the Zapad drills, which would have been planned years in advance, and the drone incursions are ‘a way for Putin to communicate that it’s not just Ukraine they are interested in, and Russia’s plans may go beyond Ukraine’.

Seskuria said that provocations in eastern Europe were a way to ‘test the ground without ultimately escalating it to a full-scale war’.

‘But what Russia is mostly interested in is to see to what extent NATO would be willing to protect its allies in case Putin attacks Poland, Baltic states or any allies that are on the front line of NATO’s eastern flank.’

She said that Putin is primarily appealing to his internal base, presenting the enemy as not just Ukraine but the wider NATO alliance.