We’re all used to seeing photographs of U.S. president Joe Biden clambering out and in of Air Force One, however we don’t usually see him touring the nation by rail. It’s the identical story for many world leaders, who journey the globe in devoted plane to all method of vital conferences. But there’s one chief that seems to desire prepare journey, and that’s Russian chief Vladimir Putin who has reportedly taken to touring Russia through non-public prepare following his invasion of Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in March 2022, the nation’s chief has reportedly elected to journey between official conferences by prepare, reasonably than taking to the skies in a personal jet. But Putin doesn’t hop aboard a Russian Railways passenger prepare. Instead, he has his personal state-run non-public prepare, which reportedly price Russia’s taxpayers greater than $74 million.
Now, a brand new report from CNN and the Dossier Center has uncovered particulars of what it’s like inside Putin’s non-public prepare, and it actually is kind of one thing. The prepare, which was reportedly bought for six.8 billion rubles, comprises the whole lot from a fitness center and Turkish steam bathtub, to a cinema and even a cosmetologist’s workplace.
Newsweek stories that the prepare, which is operated by an organization referred to as Zircon Service, additionally consists of carriages crammed with important healthcare gear, together with a ventilator and defibrillator. The web site explains:
“While the train is exclusively for Putin, the president doesn’t travel alone. ‘Dozens of employees’ from the FSO ‘are engaged in the train on a daily basis, who are responsible for the protection of the president and special communication,’ the Dossier Center wrote.
“To accommodate the needs of security staff, as well as possible Kremlin officials and private guests, the train has 22 cars in total, according to the report. However, it said only about 10 cars are usually used at a time.”
To uncover the secrets and techniques of Putin’s non-public prepare, CNN, the Dossier Center, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the German broadcasters Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Norddeutscher Rundfunk trawled numerous paperwork about its development. The paperwork got here from Russia’s Federal Guard Service (FSO), Russian Railways, and different authorities sources.
Through its investigations, the publications discovered that safety and secrecy “was neglected in the construction of the train.”
“We discovered a complete list of the train’s cars in the public domain,” Ilia Rozhdestvenskii, a journalist who wrote the report for the Dossier Center, instructed Newsweek. “The armor on the train does not provide protection against serious threats; it only guards against gunfire.”
What’s extra, the investigators discovered that the communication techniques have been “hopelessly outdated,” and that safety had been “sacrificed” to make approach for Putin’s creature comforts.
Source: jalopnik.com