Vladimir Putin may soon vanish for a period as he is due to undergo surgery linked to cancer, according to a new claim.

He has allegedly secretly nominated his hardline security council security secretary Nikolai Patrushev - a former KGB counterintelligence officer - to take “control” of Russia while he is incapacitated.

Shadowy Patrushev, 70, is seen as a key architect of the Ukrainian war strategy and the man who convinced Putin that Kyiv was awash with neo-Nazis.

The extraordinary unconfirmed claims come from General SVR Telegram channel, which first raised issues of Putin’s health - including abdominal cancer and Parkinson’s - some 18 months ago.

... we first met three years ago, backstage at his comedy show in Kyiv, when he was still an actor running for President. His sense of humor is still intact. “It’s a means of survival,” he says. But two months of war have made him harder, quicker to anger, and a lot more comfortable with risk. Russian troops came within minutes of finding him and his family in the first hours of the war, their gunfire once audible inside his office walls. Images of dead civilians haunt him. So do the daily appeals from his troops, hundreds of whom are trapped belowground, running out of food, water, and ammunition.

... he had changed. There were new creases in his face, and he no longer searched the room for his advisers when considering an answer to a question. “I’ve gotten older,” he admitted. “I’ve aged from all this wisdom that I never wanted. It’s the wisdom tied to the number of people who have died, and the torture the Russian soldiers perpetrated. That kind of wisdom,” he added, trailing off. “To be honest, I never had the goal of attaining knowledge like that.”

It made me wonder whether he regretted the choice he made three years ago, around the time we first met. His comedy show had been a hit. Standing in his dressing room, he was still glowing from the admiration of the crowd. Friends waited backstage to start the after-party. Fans gathered outside to take a picture with him. This was just three months into his run for the presidency, when it was not too late for Zelensky to turn back.

But he does not regret the choice he made, not even with the hindsight of the war. “Not for a second,” he told me in the presidential compound. He doesn’t know how the war will end, or how history will describe his place in it. In this moment, he only knows Ukraine needs a wartime President. And that is the role he intends to play.

In my view, there will be no referendum. I think that they are most likely (planning to have the region) join (Crimea). There is no point in making another sham republic. There are no preparations for a referendum.

Russia has deployed trained military dolphins at its naval base in the Black Sea – possibly to protect its fleet from an underwater attack – according to new analysis of satellite images.

The US Naval Institute (USNI) reviewed satellite imagery of the naval base at Sevastopol harbor, and concluded that two dolphin pens were moved to the base in February at the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The M982 Excalibur is a 155-mm extended range guided artillery shell. The Excalibur was developed and manufactured by Raytheon Missiles & Defense and BAE Systems AB.

Excalibur is guided through the GPS and can hit targets up to 60 km away. And in December 2020, during the tests, the US Army successfully hit the target at a distance of 70 km. The weight is 44 kg, and the weight of the warhead is 22 kg.

Experience from Iraq has demonstrated the high accuracy and effectiveness of these weapons – 92% of hits were with an error of less than 4 meters.

There are also versions of “smart” ammunition capable of hitting moving targets.

The aim is to secure Ukraine's long-term security and sovereignty in terms of how it will defend itself after the war. The US has invited defense ministers and representatives from 40 countries to participate — with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also in attendance.

As he opened the talks, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the conference sought "to help Ukraine win the fight against Russia's unjust invasion and to build up Ukraine's defenses for tomorrow's challenges."

"As we see this morning, nations from around the world stand united in our resolve to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia's imperial aggression," Austin said.

He said Kyiv's allies will "keep moving heaven and Earth" to bolster Ukraine's defense.

"Ukraine clearly believes that it can win and so does everyone here," he added.