Putin’s attack dog Ramzan Kadyrov flaunts Tesla ‘gifted by Elon Musk’ with machine GUN bolted to roof ‘ready for combat’

Why has the Ukrainian invasion of Russia been so successful?

A DARING Ukrainian military push into Russia’s Kursk region has become the largest attack on the country since World War Two.

Kyiv’s forces have seized scores of villages, taken hundreds of prisoners and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians.

After more than a week of fighting, Russian troops are still struggling to drive out the invaders.

Why has Russian military been caught so unprepared?

• A long undefended border

Russia’s regions of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod share a 720-mile border with Ukraine – including a 152-mile section in the Kursk region.

And it only had symbolic protection before Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.

It’s been reinforced since then with checkpoints on key roads and field fortifications in places – but not enough to repel a Ukrainian assault.

The most capable Russian units are fighting in eastern Ukraine, leaving the border vulnerable to attack.

• Element of surprise

Ukrainian troops participating in the incursion were reportedly only told about their mission a day before it began.

The secrecy contrasted with last year’s counteroffensive – when Ukraine openly declared its goal of cutting the land corridor to annexed Crimea.

Ukraine ended up failing as troops trudged through Russian minefields and were pummelled by artillery and drones.

But in Kursk, Ukrainian troops didn’t face any of these obstacles.

Battle-hardened units easily overwhelmed Russian border guards and small infantry units made up of inexperienced conscripts.

The Ukrainians drove deep into the region in several directions – facing little resistance and sowing chaos and panic.

• Russia’s slow response

The Russian military command initially relied on warplanes and choppers to try to stop the onslaught.

At least one Russian helicopter gunship was shot down and another was damaged.

Moscow began pulling in reinforcements, managing to slow Ukraine’s advances – but failed to completely block troops.

VLADIMIR Putin’s Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov has been a staunch supporter of the war in Ukraine. 

The former separatist rebel fought against the Russians in the First Chechen War, only to change sides and join Moscow in the second conflict in 1999.

Human rights groups say he personally oversees the torture of political opponents in secret dungeons and runs death squads known as “Kadyrovites”.

Ramzan Kadyrov was born in Chechnya in 1976, and like many men of his generation has lived a life largely defined by two brutal wars that ripped through the republic in the 1990s and 2000s.

In the first Chechen war of 1994 to 1996, he fought alongside his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, for the Chechen separatist cause.

But in 1999, after Mr Putin launched the second Chechen war to restore Russian control over the break away republic, the Kadyrovs changed sides.

Akhmad was subsequently installed as the pro-Russian president of the republic.

When he was assassinated in 2004, the baton of pro-Russian leadership passed to his stocky son.

The tracksuit wearing bodybuilder was not an obvious politician after being backed by Putin, he quickly become one of the most powerful men in Russia.

But as he has grown more powerful, he has become an increasingly divisive figure in Russian politics.

To supporters, he is a Russian patriot who has brought peace to a war ravaged region, presided over unprecedented post-war recovery and reconstruction.

To his enemies  he is a turn-coat rebel who has turned Chechnya into his personal fiefdom where Russian law doesn’t apply, and who has used terror and murder to crush not only the separatist Islamist insurgency, but political rivals, human rights activists, and domestic dissenters.