Video shows Vladimir Putin with a nuclear briefcase while in China

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been filmed arriving with his ‘nuclear briefcase’ while in China. Watch video.

Vladimir Putin arrived to Beijing with a nuclear briefcase, according to Russian state-owned new agency RIA Novosti which shared chilling footage.

The Russian President was surrounded by security guards and followed by two Russian naval officers in uniform each carrying a briefcase after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The video — originally shared by RIA Novosti on its telegram account for Kremlin pool journalists and has since been reshared — zooms in on one of the briefcases.

Footage shows Russian President Vladimir Putin accompanied by officers with a briefcase during his trip to China.

Russia’s nuclear briefcase is traditionally carried by a naval officer and is known as the “Cheget”, which is named after Mount Cheget in the Caucasus Mountains.

However, while the briefcase is with the president at all times, it’s rarely filmed.

“There are certain suitcases without which no trip of Putin’s is complete,” RIA Novosti said under the footage.

In another clip, Mr Putin walks out of a meeting in Beijing with the naval officers again filmed just a few metres from the president who grins as he walks down some stairs.

Mr Putin can be seen surrounded by security and followed by two Russian naval officers in uniform each carrying a briefcase

Not much is known about Mr Putin‘s nuclear briefcase — which US President Joe Biden also has — but the Cheget doesn’t contain a nuclear launch button.

Instead, it transmits launch orders to the central military command of Russia’s general staff.

The sighting comes a day after members of Russia’ lower house of parliament voted unanimously to revoke Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

The treaty, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, prohibits any nuclear explosion during weapon testing or otherwise anywhere in the world.

NEW MISSILES WON’T HELP UKRAINE: PUTIN

Mr Putin said the long-range missiles Washington had supplied Kyiv would only prolong the country’s agony, hours after Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said they had already proved their worth.

Ukraine also reported more deaths from the latest wave of Russian missile strikes and said they were bracing for an expected fresh assault on the frontline town of Avdiivka.

It had been a “mistake” for Washington to give Ukraine long-range ATACMS missiles, the Russian leader told journalists at a news conference in Beijing.

“War is war, and, of course … they pose a threat, that goes without saying,” he said in response to questions about the weapons.

“But most importantly, this will not change the situation on the line of contact dramatically at all,” he added.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shaking hands during a meeting in Beijing. Picture: AFP

The decision to supply the missiles had been “another mistake on the part of the United States,” he said. “It just prolongs the agony.”

White House confirmed on Tuesday that it had provided Ukraine with the longer-range weapons they had requested to strike deep inside Russian-held territory.

According to US media outlets the ATACMS have a maximum range of around 160km.

Russian officials had already accused Ukraine on Tuesday of using the US-supplied missiles to attack Berdyansk, a Russian-controlled port city in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.

Mr Zelenskyy confirmed Ukraine had used the missiles after the attacks, but did not give details about how or when they were deployed.

“They have performed very accurately. ATACMS have proven themselves,” he said in an evening address Tuesday.

OVERNIGHT ATTACKS

Russia continued to attack other parts of Ukraine overnight Wednesday, as officials said air strikes on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions had killed at least six people.

Five died in a missile strike that hit a residential building in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, local officials said.

A 31-year-old woman was killed in a strike on a town just outside the city of Dnipro, Ukraine’s internal affairs minister Igor Klymenko said.

Zaporizhzhia governor Yuriy Malashko said Russia had “launched six missile attacks on Zaporizhzhia” in the early hours of Tuesday.

Emergency services said the Zaporizhzhia strike had destroyed an apartment building’s third to fifth floors. Photos showed a crater in the upper floors and a collapsed facade.

In an interview with a Ukrainian TV station, Malashko blamed the strike on an “S-300 missile”.

“The apartment was badly damaged. The part facing the street is not there at all,” one resident, 41-year-old Tetyana, told AFP.

Also hit was Zaporizhzhia’s Holy Intercession Cathedral, an Orthodox church destroyed during the Soviet repression of the 1930s, then rebuilt in the 1990s.

“The blast wave smashed all the windows in the church and broke the window frames,” the Ukrainian Orthodox Church said, citing cathedral rector Oleh Semenchuk.

– with AFP

Originally published as Video shows Vladimir Putin with a nuclear briefcase while in China