More than 40 Russian vessels and 30-plus military planes and 20 helicopters took part in exercises in Crimea, with missile launches, practice bombings and landings by amphibious forces.

The rhythmic gymnast, 38, who now heads a major media holding in Moscow, this week told Russia’s women gymnastics team that they were ‘ready and set to win for your country’ at the Olympics.

The Nagurskoye airbase in the Franz Josef Land archipelago was built in the 1950s as a weather station and communications outpost but is now a huge military base for Russia.

Yesterday footage emerged in Astrakhan, 350 miles from the front, showing Russian BTR 80 armoured personnel carriers daubed with broad white stripes on their way to a railway station.

As Kiev warned it could be ‘provoked’ by Russia’s aggression, Western nations voiced their fears that Putin’s move could trigger an all-out war, which could drag Nato allies into the conflict.

School graduate Elizaveta Krivonogikh, 17, was named as Putin’s secret daughter last week, a claim which is backed by a computer expert at Bradford University.

Alina Kabaeva, a famous 37-year-old Olympic gold medallist, has not been seen in Russia since 2018 when she was believed to be pregnant with twins.

Other world leaders have explicitly demanded an explanation from the Russian government for Navalny's poisoning.