LONDON (Portal) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday inspected a training ground for mobilized troops and was shown firing shots from a sniper rifle in footage apparently intended to show his personal support for soldiers en route to Ukraine.
Putin was accompanied on the trip to Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who briefed him on the men’s training, the Kremlin said.
The footage showed what appeared to be Putin, lying flat on the ground and firing from a rifle. In the next image, Putin dusts off his coat, pats a soldier on the shoulder and wishes him luck.
The visit came a day after Putin increased Russia’s state of war and imposed martial law in four occupied regions of Ukraine he intended to annex last month, in a move deemed illegal by Ukraine, its allies and the United Nations General Assembly was convicted.
Faced with a series of defeats in the war, Putin last month declared a “partial mobilization” to call up hundreds of thousands of additional troops.
It was chaotic, draft papers often went to the wrong people, and even Putin had to admit to mistakes. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled abroad to avoid conscription.
Putin said last Friday the mobilization would be over within two weeks. On Thursday, he ordered all regions of Russia to do more to support the army’s needs, stressing that all mobilized men must be sent to the front lines with proper equipment.
(Writing by Mark Trevelyan, Editing by Alexandra Hudson)