Images on Russian train spotting hobbyist websites appear to show Putin’s train. The train is painted to look like a regular Russian Railways train. Obtained by CNN
August 5, 2022 was a day like many others in Ukraine. First light revealed the devastation of a night of Russian bombing.
Russian attacks on a residential neighborhood in Mykolaiv that morning caused “significant destruction,” the region’s governor said at the time, with at least 10 injured.
That same day in Moscow, bureaucrats in President Vladimir Putin’s office were preoccupied with a far-flung issue from the brutal war in Ukraine.
“The Transportation Administration has received an appeal,” wrote a Kremlin official, “regarding the need to install Hoist HD-3800 and Hoist HD-3200 gym equipment instead of Abductor-Standard and Abductor-Technogym in the sports health wagon No 021- 78630.”
Recently leaked documents suggest that the “sports health wagon” is used by none other than Putin himself.
Among the detailed train parts is car number 021-78630, with a gym and spa for Putin, according to the Dossier Center. The Dossier Center
Very little is known about Putin’s private life. His public image is groomed, as has been evident in the days following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived rebellion. But a trove of paperwork and photographs obtained exclusively by the London-based Russian investigative group Dossier Center and shared with CNN, Süddeutsche Zeitung and German public broadcasters NDR and WDR reveals details about the Kremlin’s yachts from sight of the public and to what extent. that Putin’s paranoia has created a cloistered existence.
The Dossier Center is backed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled former Russian oil tycoon turned Kremlin critic.
The fact that Putin uses a train is well known. The Kremlin itself has released images of meetings held on board, in an ornately decorated boardroom. The contents of the train’s other 20 carriages, however, have been a closely guarded state secret.
The Dossier Center says the leaked documents came from an insider at Zircon Service, a Russian company commissioned by Russian Railways, the state-owned rail operator, to equip cars destined for the Russian president’s office.
Among the detailed train parts is car number 021-78630. A glossy brochure made by Zircon himself shows a luxury gym and spa on wheels designed for Putin, according to the Dossier Center.
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