THE battle of egos continues as Vladimir Putin dons a military uniform in an effort to upstage The Don.
The Russian tyrant was spotted on Tuesday in military fatigues during the Zapad-2025 (West 2025) war games.
7
7
7
His army-outfit appearance came the morning prior to Donald Trump touching down in the UK.
Putin was last seen in an army uniform in March, after which critics claimed it was his body double.
Appearing at Mulino training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the Kremlin dictator was at least 500 miles from the nearest frontline in the war.
Putin – Russia’s Supreme Commander-in-Chief – has steadfastly avoided the frontline, unlike Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky regularly wears the military uniform and appears alongside his combat soldiers.
The 72-year-old chose to don the fatigues ahead of Trump’s arrival at Windsor Castle on Tuesday night.
The Zapad-2025 war games are a show of Russian strength to the West.
On Tuesday, Putin thanked foreign observers and participants.
“I would like to thank you for your participation,” he said.
“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”.
The war games included plans for firing nuclear missiles at NATO countries.
“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 went on to boast that the practice for attacking NATO was “taking place at 41 training grounds”.
“100,000 servicemen are participating, [with] about 10,000 weapons and equipment systems,” he said.
He added that 333 tactical and strategic aviation aircraft and military transport planes were taking part in the exercises.
7
7
7
“More than 247 surface ships, submarines and support vessels are also used,” he said.
“Twenty five foreign delegations have arrived to participate in the events of the 2025 exercise.”
The dictator also tried on a pair of Strekoza tactical glasses, while in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, his troops unleashed a drone strike on a residential area of the city.
A video of one missile could be seen spiralling through the air before hitting a building, leaving it engulfed in flames, while one school was also hit by a drone.
7
