Vladimir Putin living in underground city protected against nuclear attack, says expert

 Professor Valery Solovey believes the Russian President and Defence Minister have retreated into an enormous nuclear bunker east of the Urals that can "house 100,000 people"

     The academic who first alleged the Kremlin leader is seriously ill alleges the Russian president has retreated to a vast nuclear bunker as he lives in fear of his enemies.

     Professor Valery Solovey, 61, also claims Putin is unlikely to remain in politics beyond the end of this year due to poor health.

     In an online TV interview with a Latvian channel, Solovey said that Putin's supposed lover - Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva - is not in a Swiss bolthole as reported, but in a “secure location” in Russia. 

     Putin was seen today six time zones east of Moscow at the new Vostochny spaceport, alongside his ally, brutal Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Putin's movements across Russia are now a tightly held secret, and while his arrival was announced early this morning in Blagoveshchensk, close to the Chinese border, his departure and routings were not disclosed.

      A day earlier he was in Moscow for a frosty meeting with Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer.

    Solovey - who claims to have high-level Kremlin insider sources - has long alleged Putin suffers from cancer and other medical conditions, a theory for which he has provided no hard evidence.

     But he was backed up earlier this month by an investigation from independent Project media that showed Putin is followed everywhere by a vast medical team, including oncology specialists. Some of the doctors were named.

    Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu often “vanish to bomb shelters east of the Urals, nuclear bomb shelters,” said Solovey.

 “Putin spends most of his time there. There are several of them, with the key one where Putin stays - able to fit up to 100,000 people, the expert added 

The facility is intended to house Russian survivors in the event of Armageddon.

      Separate claims have suggested a location close to a major Gazprom facility in the far north of Russia.

     Solovey last month suggested Putin hid his family in a hi-tech bunker in the Altai Mountains, but it was not clear if his latest claim relates to the same place.