News about Leonid Brezhnev

Underscoring the importance of Xi's support for the Kremlin, Putin headed to Beijing earlier this week in what was his first trip abroad since his March re-election and the second in just over six months to China. Russia, grappling with Western sanctions after its invasion of Ukraine, is increasingly reliant on its booming trade with China, which is challenging US supremacy in areas from quantum computing to espionage and hard military power. And although President Xi, in keeping with the tenets of China's political culture, is not known for effusive displays of warmth, he gripped Putin tightly by the shoulders and pulled him in for a pair of firm, if awkward, hugs. Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showing the leaders enjoying the uncharacteristic embrace as aides and officials fawned and clapped from the sidelines.

On Monday, Thomas Stafford, the Apollo 10 commander, died at the age of 93. He ordered the dress reversal for the 1969 moon landing. Max Ary, director of the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, Oklahoma, died in a hospital near his Space Coast Florida home. In four space missions, the retired Air Force three-star general served in four missions. He flew on two Gemini flights, including the first rendezvous of two US capsules in orbit, well before Apollo 10.

EDWARD LUCAS: The Third World War is approaching, and Britain is likely to be fighting a multi-front war against Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea within five years. That is not scary. This week, Grant Shapps, who spoke in his first major address as Defence Minister, warned that we're going from a war to a pre-war world.' We are already embroiled in this New World Disorder. The rise of China; Russian imperialism; the mullahs in Iran attempting to drive the Americans and their influence out of the Middle East; mass suicide in Israel and the Gaza Strip; and persistent terrorist movements in the global economy as a result of mass migration.

The run-up to Christmas can be a nightmare for women, with pubs full of pissed men armed with flaccid sprigs of mistleto

Officials suspect that Putin will declare his participation in the referendum in March next year as part of a conference in November. The author said that there are others for what Putin may do at the conference, but that the final decision rests with him. Putin, who was voted president by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has been a figure for longer than any other Russian emperor since Josef Stalin, defeating even Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year tenure. On October 7, the Russian president will have turned 71.

Following the crash of the Luna-25 spacecraft into the Moon's surface, a top astronomer who worked on Russia's failed space mission was admitted to the hospital. Following the disaster, Mikhail Marov, 90, who had been billed as a key consultant to the mission, suffered a'sharp deterioration' in his health. During Russia's first lunar mission in 47 years, the Luna-25 unmanned space vessel spiralled out of control and crashed into the lunar surface on 19 August. Marov's health condition arose after he ordered an inquiry into the expedition's demise. The mission's demise has been blamed on endemic mismanagement within the country's space ministry.

Anton Gerashchenko, a Kyiv government official, made the extraordinary claim. On May 9, Putin will not dare to attend the Red Square parade (top right), but it will do a double,' he said. According to rumors, Putin (pictured left) is using doppelgängers who have undergone plastic surgery to appear as the Russian tyrant, but they have escalated recently. Because of the war against Ukraine, the 70-year-old is believed to be afraid of assassination. It comes just days after Putin's authorities announced that a drone attack had struck the Kremlin, with the suspected explosion caught on camera (bottom right). Last month, it was said that Ukrainian secret service agents had attempted to assassinate Putin with a kamikaze drone carrying explosives, but that it crashed a few miles shy of their intended destination.

A video of long-defunct T-54B and T-55A tanks on a train traveling through Russia, evidently destined for the frontlines of the conflict has surfaced. It comes after Putin searched museums and storage depots for recently uncovered T-62 battle tanks, which stopped production 12 years ago. The geriatric T-54 was created by Stalin after the Second World War in 1946, but Putin seems to be sending war an old version from the 1950s, which is roughly the same age as the tyrant. Putin is fond of boasting about the military's prowess. However, his armies have been revealed as being outdated both tactically and technologically.

In a video that has appeared in Russia, the outdated Soviet-era T-62s (shown left and figures correct) has been seen being'modernized' in a Chita, Siberia round-the-clock factory. The drive to retrofit the ageing tanks highlights the desperation of his military machine, as Ukraine is supplied with the most modern Western tanks. Some of the tanks being restored at the 103rd Plant may have been 60 years old, dating from the time Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev were ruling the USSR.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's head of military intelligence, has questioned whether "the true Putin still exists," according to the Russian president, who has at least three body doubles (pictured left) who have under plastic surgery to look like him. Following a string of devastating attacks on Russian interests, the extraordinary remark, despite repeated rumors regarding Putin's health, came in an exclusive interview with the man identified as Moscow's Public Enemy No. 1 following a string of devastating attacks on Russian interests.

According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he would not attend Mikhail Gorbachev's funeral on Saturday because of his 'work commitments,' rather than his. It comes after Putin was seen on Russian state television bowing his head after laying a bouquet of red roses near Gorbachev's open casket (main) at the hospital where he died on Tuesday at the age of 91. He paused for a moment of silence, bowed his head, briefly laid his hand on the casket, and then gave a sign of the cross. The Moscow Hall of Columns will host Gorbachev's funeral service on Saturday. It has been used for funeral services of high executives, including Joseph Stalin in 1953. Gorbachev will be buried in Moscow next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.

Despite the fact that the last incarnation of the Soviet Union was largely criticized by Kremlin hardliners for failing to prevent the demise of the Soviet Union following the Cold War, Vladimir Putin's spin doctors expressed'sympathies' over Mikhail Gorbachev's death aged 91. Gorbachev died "after a lengthy and complicated illness," according to Interfax, TASS, and RIA Novosti news agencies, but gave no other details. He had been suffering from long-term kidney disease and was on dialysis for the past, and had been tied to a clinic during the Covid pandemic. Despite being in office less than seven years, Gorbachev introduced a string of reforms that culminated in dramatic changes, including the reunification of Germany, the demise of Stalin's empire, the independence of Eastern European nations, including Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic republics from decades of Russian domination, as well as the break of the nuclear war with Europe. Putin's spokesperson said in a tweet that the President - who has sluggishly called the demise of the USSR the 'largest geopolitical disaster' of the twentieth century - has expressed "deep sympathy" for Gorbachev's death.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who was mocked by Vladimir Putin and Russian nationalists for causing the Cold War and failing to prevent the Soviet Union from crashing at the age of 91, according to Russian news agencies. According to the Interfax, TASS, and RIA Novosti news agencies, the former Soviet leader died "after a long and difficult illness." During the pandemic, Gorbachev had been suffering from long-term kidney disease and dialysis and was confined to a clinic. The USSR's last president forged a series of arms reduction agreements with the United States and Western powers, including Britain, to destroy the Iron Curtain that had divided the European continent since the Second World War, and bring about Germany's reunification.

Mikhail Gorbachev (left, with Ronald Reagan), like final Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus and Soviet predecessor Tsar Nicholas II before him, oversaw the demise of a once-mighty empire. The eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, who died at the age of 91, did not fight his reformist faction until 1991's dissolution of the communist nation. Gorbachev resigned shortly after taking over and a single year after winning the country's first presidential election.

On February 26, Mikhail Kulikov (left), a blitzed the residential block in Chernihiv, and was captured days later. According to interior ministry official Anton Herashchenko, a court in the city (file photo of a burning Chernihiv residential building) has found him guilty of breaching the rules and customs of war. According to Kulikov's office, he pleaded guilty to certain charges and requested a more lenient sentence because he said he had been following orders. According to the city of Chernihiv, the residential block struck was not a military target or being used for military purposes.