Importance Score: 72 / 100 🔴
An Aurus limousine believed to be part of Vladimir Putin’s official car fleet exploded and caught fire in Moscow. Footage appears to show the £275,000 Aurus Senat ablaze on a street just north of Moscow’s FSB secret service Lubyanka headquarters.
The car is believed to be part of fleet of vehicles beloinging to the Kremlin’s Presidential Property Management Department. Images show the engine fire spreading to the the interior of the limousine. It was not clear who was in the vehicle at the time of the incident.
Nor has there been any confirmation about what caused the sudden blaze on Sretenka Street.
Reports suggest that there were no inuires or fatalities as a result of the explosion and fire.
Putin, 72, routinely uses the Russian-made cars and has gifted the limousines, for example to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
The incident is likely to increase Kremlin paranoia that foreign agents are plotting to assassinate Putin.
Earlier this year, the Kremlin warned any attempt to assassinate the Russian leader would be met with a nuclear response.
In late January, the House Speaker of Russia’s Parliament issued a stark warning to any would-be assassins.
Writing on his Telegram channel, Vyacheslav Volodin said: “The plot to assassinate Putin, mere discussions of it is a crime, a serious threat to global security, a direct path to nuclear war. All international institutions should view it as a basis for an investigation.”
Any attempt to kill Putin would be extremely difficult given the unprecedented security measures he is known to take.
However, despite the obvious difficulties such a mission would incur, there have been reports of plots against the Kremlin tyrant.
The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said in a TV interview that he was aware of several attempts to assassinate Putin recently.
Furthermore, the US journalist Tucker Carlson claimed that Joe Biden’s administration had considered getting rid of Russia’s dictator.
However, a leading anti-Putin opposition figure told the Express that Biden’s administration had ruled out assassinating Putin or his elites and made that clear to Kyiv.
A number of prominient Russian military officers have been killed in recent months, adding to the Kremlin’s paranoia.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and an aide were killed in Moscow in December, when explosives planted on his scooter detonated.
Kirillov headed Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection forces. He has been accused of authorising and overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.