Vladimir Putin has ramped up anti-drone defences at the remote mansion he shares with his secret lover and sons amid fears of Ukrainian attacks.
The Russian president has installed 27 towers armed with anti-aircraft systems at his Valdai fortress in a remote forest area in the Novgorod region.
The palatial property has had 20 of the ‘drone-killer’ systems installed since 2024, costing up to £16million each, and is now better protected than most Russian cities.
The entire Moscow metropolitan region, home to 20 million people, is only protected by 60 of the defence systems.
But Putin, 73, has made sure to bolster security at his own home, with a layout reportedly mimicking Moscow’s defences.
The Valdai retreat is said to be his favourite residence and is shared with his secret long-term lover Alina Kabaeva, 42, a former Olympic rhythmic gymnast, and their two sons, Swiss-born Ivan, 11, and Moscow-born Vladimir, six.
The estate, based 185 miles from Ukraine, has seen the construction of seven new anti-drone towers since March 17, according to satellite imagery obtained by Radio Svoboda.
It comes as concerns mount in Moscow over Kyiv’s evolving long-range drone capability.
In December, Putin accused Ukraine of attacking his luxury hideaway, with Russia’s defence ministry posting a video which allegedly showed debris from 91 Ukrainian drones at the Valdai complex.
But the CIA dismissed the claim as false with one Ukrainian official branding the footage ‘laughable’.
Putin’s luxury home sits in between two lakes and is surrounded by dense forest, helping protect it from foreign drones.
It is also believed to contain a replica of his Kremlin office, which allows him to hide his location in video messages, its own nuclear bunker and a hospital.
The Kremlin despot has tightened his defences even more after rumours that his lover Kabaeva refused to remain at this palace, 230 miles northwest of Moscow.
Most of the current 27 air defence units are believed to be Pantsir systems but at least one is an S-400 system, costing as much as £800m.
Sophisticated radar also protects the Kremlin ‘tsar’ and a family he has never revealed to ordinary Russian people.
The overall cost of the equipment guarding this Putin palace is well over £1 billion.
The sprawling Valdai palace complex includes a main house and a separate residence for Kabaeva and the children.
In December, Ukraine launched a long-range drone strike on the Akron chemicals plant – key to Russian explosives manufacture – in Veliky Novgorod, 85 miles from Valdai.
The Kremlin claimed more than 90 Ukrainian drones were directed at him.
Putin’s young sons are hidden under the surname Spiridonov, according to a book by respected Russian investigative journalists Roman Badanin and Mikhail Rubin.
They are educated by tutors and do not attend normal schools.
‘Information about the gymnast and her children is erased from state databases, the boys were given a cover surname Spiridonov, and all the territory around the Valdai dwelling of the tsar’s family is strictly guarded,’ said the book ‘The Tsar in Person. How Vladimir Putin Fooled Us All’.
The children are keen young gymnasts who have been seen on videos.
Russian academic and autocracy expert Konstantin Gaaze said Putin’s concern for security is akin to the behaviour of notorious Saddam Hussein who ruled Iraq from 1979 to 2003, before being executed in 2006.
‘I think that right now [with Putin] we are closest to Saddam Hussein, both in terms of secret residences and how the system operates for protecting information about the whereabouts of the head of state and his family,’ he said.
Spiridonov appears to be a family name linked to the first name of Putin’s colourful paternal grandfather Spiridon Putin, who lived from 1879 to 1965, dying on his 86th birthday.
Ukraine in February claimed to have destroyed half of all Russia’s Pantsir air defence systems.
