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Hello, it's 709 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And we heard President Putin singing the national anthem yesterday at a closing ceremony

for a gathering of teenagers and young people who were part of the Russian patriotic youth movement

called Movement of the First. And you can hear him singing a little bit at the beginning and then in the clip that's been posted on social media he hands the microphone to various teenagers around him and they wholeheartedly carry on singing the anthem and at the end they're all shouting Russia Russia Russia

It's been described in various ways in various publications and websites across Europe and Russia, hasn't it, Vitali?

Yes, in the West it's not gone down particularly well, unsurprisingly.

The words,

cringe worthy is something that commentators are using.

But in Russia, it's all over state-controlled media and there's a definite propaganda line there

with several pro-Cremen sources saying that the Jimmy Rich Putin doesn't normally demonstrate his

singing skills in public but this time he made an exception to help the kids.

The important point to make here though is that this is a

version of the Soviet anthem. albeit with new lyrics, words, and when it was approved shortly after the

Merrputin came to power back in the year 2000.

It became one of the first signs of what he was setting out to achieve as

Russia's president with so many people saying now that he's trying to

restore the Soviet Union but one of the first things he restored was the Soviet anthem

with new words.

Were people in the year 2000 saying, ah, this is a clue as to what he really wants to do when this came back?

Well, he's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, when he heard this he seemed appalled he seemed to realize what

mistake he had made by effectively introducing Vladimir Putin as his successor and he said the new words do not save

...