Putin has fled Moscow to bunker at his ‘secret palace’ after Wagner Group rebellion, claims anti-Vlad oligarch
VLADIMIR Putin has allegedly fled to his secret bunker in northeast Russia, according to an exiled oligarch.
Exiled Putin foe and businessman Leonid Nevzlin has claimed Putin, alongside his closest friends, are hiding in his Valdai mansion.
Nevzlin said: "Putin is hiding in the bunker of his residence in Valdai. His closest friends and associates also flew there.
"The dictator is in a panic. Additional troops advanced towards Valdai to protect it. This has just been reported by my sources."
Nevzlin is a vocal critic of Russian government and Putin who renounced his Russian citizenship in 2022 over the war.
Upon his renouncement of citizenship, he said: "Everything that Putin touches dies. Russian citizenship itself has become a mark of disgrace that I no longer want to bear."
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The sprawling estate is located on the shore of a lake and nestled in deep forests of the Valdai Hills, which lie halfway between Moscow and St Petersburg in eastern Russia.
His spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Putin was remaining in the Kremlin and working as Wagner fighters marched towards Moscow earlier today, before turning back.
The country was feared to be on the cusp of a bloody civil war as fierce battles erupted between Putin's troops and mercenaries from the Wagner Group in an extraordinary armed rebellion.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin vowed to "punish" Russia after he blamed the Kremlin for a deadly missile attack on one of his training camps in Bakhmut, Ukraine.
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The warlord - a former pal of Putin's - led an armed rebellion with the stated aim to oust Russia's military leaders as he turned on the top brass in Moscow.
Putin raged "this is treason" in an astonishing early morning address to the nation on TV which showed he wasn't backing down.
Yet multiple sources claimed Putin's presidential plane took off from Moscow earlier today, before turning off its tracker over eastern Russia.
Peskov denied he had flown to his Valdai palace in St Petersburg on the private plane.
A second Russian presidential jet - an Il-96-300PU with registration number RA-96021 - was noticed flying from Moscow in the direction of St Petersburg.
Like the earlier aircraft, this one carries top Kremlin officials including the president.
It also switched off its transponder to prevent tracking the route.
The sprawling lakeside estate seen on drone footage includes a stable, golf course, mini-golf course, VIP restaurant with a cinema, bowling, billiard room and even a mini-casino.
The complex is dubbed Putin’s “most secret official dacha”, and is thought to have a bunker.
Other business jets were seen making an exodus from the capital towards St Petersburg and neighbouring countries.
There was also a claim from Telegram channel General SVR that Putin’s fiends “almost without exception” were “preparing routes for relocation along with their relatives and friends”.
Many have described Putin's rumoured escape from Moscow as cowardice compared to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's famous video on the night war broke out in Ukraine.
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Zelensky said: "We're all here. Our military is here. Citizens in society are here. We're all here defending our independence, our country, and it will stay this way."
When offered a chance to evacuate Ukraine by the United States, Zelenskyy said: "The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride."
