Putin flees to Siberia to see brainwashed kids chant his name while Moscow & St Petersburg burn AGAIN in Ukrainian blitz

VLADIMIR Putin has fled to Siberia for a PR exercise, turning his back on parts of Russia being pummelled by Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes. Burying his head in the sand, the Russian President flew 2,500 miles east to the city of Krasnoyarsk to kick a football on stage and watch 10-to-13-years-olds chanting his name. A warehouse burns in the Leningrad region after a Ukrainian drone strike Credit: East2West Plumes of smoke seen rising high in the sky from the site Credit: East2West At the same time, Moscow and St Petersburg were under siege yet again. Ukraine‘s kamikaze drones hit two Wildberries hubs – one in Krasny Bor, near St Petersburg and one in the Tver region – bringing the war to the doorstep of Putin. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! A drone attack on the city of Chekhov also set an unnamed warehouse alight. Five people were killed and another 10 injured as remnants of a downed aircraft hit a block of flats in the Russian capital. The death toll is the highest in the region in any incident since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Ukraine has sought to disrupt the operations of Wildberries, often described as Russia‘s answer ​to Amazon and is a linchpin ‌of the consumer ⁠economy. The company’s founder and CEO, Tatyana ⁠Kim, has called the strikes, which have targeted ‌more than ​a dozen Wildberries sites ‌since July 18, “acts of ​terrorism”. In an attempt to run away from Ukrainian drones, the company has today unveiled plans to erect a 260,000 square metres warehouse all the way in Kazakhstan. Most read in The Sun The aftermath of a strike on Moscow’s region industrial zone Credit: East2West Syzran oil refinery burns in Russia’s Samara region Credit: East2West Russian food retailer Lenta also said a fallen drone had caused a fire at its distribution facility in the Leningrad region. Overall, Russia’s Defence ⁠Ministry ​said ⁠on Tuesday ⁠it ​had ⁠brought ‌down ‌or ‌destroyed ⁠320 Ukrainian drones overnight ‌over ​19 ‌different ⁠regions. Hiding away from this turmoil, Putin watched the choreographed chants and dances as he attended the Kremlin’s flagship state-sponsored “youth competition” Big Break at the Siberian Federal University. His trip came hours after a drone strike on a beach in Arkhipo-Osipovka, in the Gelendzhik area – and just about 17 miles from the dictator’s £1billion gilded Palace. Putin basks in cult-like adulation from young participants at Big Change youth contest in Krasnoyarsk, Western Siberia Credit: East2West Putin arrives in Krasnoyarsk, western Siberia, flanked by bodyguards Credit: East2West Seven people, including three children, were killed and another 47 injured. Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region where Gelendzhik is located, called what had happened a tragedy. “What happened today was ⁠a deliberate attack by the Kyiv regime on the civilian population, which has no ​connection whatsoever ⁠to military infrastructure,” he said in a statement on Telegram. Meanwhile, Ukraine blamed Russian forces for the deaths on the beach – arguing that the military failed to sound alerts to warn people of the drone threat. Andriy Kovalenko, head of the government’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said: “This was the work of Russian air defence forces, which shot down the drone over a beach full of vacationers. “The deaths of Russians on the beach in Gelendzhik are entirely the fault of the Russian air defense forces. “Ukraine uses its weapons exclusively against Russia’s military-industrial complex (and) economic infrastructure that affects Russia’s ability to finance the war.” Comment now