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President Vladimir V. Putin carried out a brief flight on a supersonic bomber on Thursday, a part of his pre-election effort to point out confidence and energy inside Russia, and a stark reminder to the West of his nation's nuclear capabilities.
The flight took solely half-hour, however the wide-wing Tu-160M, also referred to as the White Swan in Russia, has the vary to permit it to achieve the US with two dozen nuclear warheads, the Kremlin mentioned in a press release. Permits.
Russian state tv confirmed Mr Putin, 71, climbing the steps under the enormous warplane, one of many world's largest and heaviest, earlier than it took off from an airfield in Kazan, a metropolis east of Moscow. Fills. The Kremlin launched a video of Mr Putin's flight, exhibiting him sitting within the pilot's seat.
Upon disembarking from the aircraft, Mr Putin informed reporters the flight had left a great impression and praised the brand new fashionable bomber as “very dependable”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Mr Putin made the choice to fly spontaneously on Thursday when he visited an aviation manufacturing facility in Kazan, the place he inspected 4 modernized Tu-160M bombers, Peskov informed state tv.
However since turning into Russian president greater than twenty years in the past, Mr Putin has turn out to be identified for publicity stunts designed to current him as a powerful chief of a fantastic energy.
Throughout this time, Mr Putin flew in a fighter jet, descended into the ocean in a submersible and flew Siberian cranes to their winter habitat in a motorized dangle glider. The extensively coated stunt offered Mr Putin as a bodily match and fearless chief.
The bomber's flight seemed to be an try and ship a transparent message amid probably the most severe geopolitical battle between Moscow and the West because the darkest occasions of the Chilly Warfare.
The Tu-160M is a modernized model of the Soviet-designed strategic bomber. A part of the Russian nuclear triad, the Tu-160M's main mission is to ship nuclear bombs over lengthy distances within the occasion of a nuclear struggle. In 2005, Mr Putin flew in an earlier model of the bomber.