PANICKY Putin has cancelled a major press conference as the tyrant stares a coup in the face after a massive Ukrainian counter attack.
The Russian leader was due to conduct the annual chat in June but has reportedly chosen to postpone it for several months.
Russian news outlet Kommersant cited sources within the Kremlin that claimed it could be delayed until December.
They said the live journalistic forum was being postponed until the "Russian military situation is more stable".
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War think-tank told Sky News that Putin was set to hold the news conference early this month after Russian forces allegedly captured Bakhmut.
However, the planned onslaught in the eastern region largely failed and became drawn out until Wagner thugs got involved.
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The experts said: "It indicates that the Kremlin may perceive the capture of Bakhmut as an insufficient informational victory to compensate for the overall unstable Russian military situation in Ukraine.
"It further illustrates Putin's decline from a seemingly involved and strong leader to one more often portrayed as minutely involved in small infrastructure projects."
The despot leader has seemingly lost his control of his ruthless invasion – with anti-Putin rebels causing havoc in his backyard.
His occupied cities in Ukraine have also come under fire.
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The war finally landing on his doorstep has seen Putin's seemingly unshakable grip on power feel its first tremors of doubt – with the sharks of potential successors already starting to circle.
Just this week, battles began raging across Ukraine's front lines suggesting Ukraine's long-awaited counter-offensive was finally underway.
The new wave of attacks could seriously undermine the despot as discontent begins to spread amongst the Russian elite and the people who once thought themselves safe.
It comes as Dr Kristian Gustafson, a security expert from Brunel University, told The Sun Online the attacks "raised the stakes" and that Putin could be "in trouble".
He argued the strikes would stoke infighting in the Kremlin and spread discontent among the powerbroker elite in Moscow.
"These attacks on Moscow increase squabbling in the Kremlin, trouble Putin’s position and drag equipment from the battlefield," Dr Gustafson said.
In this game of war, “Ukraine has raised the stakes," he said.
The real danger, the expert claimed, was that "these attacks break through what the Kremlin holds up about what is actually happening in Ukraine".
"It makes Putin’s position a little less secure and it a little less likely that Russians will believe what they are being told."
In a furious rant, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said he was "deeply outraged" by Putin's troops doing "f**k all" to stop the barrage of drones reaching the Russian capital.
The raging warlord branded Kremlin military elites "smelly scumbags" for failing to defend Moscow.
It was yet another brazen attack on his superiors that baffled Gustafson.
He said: "I don’t understand Priogzhin’s game, he is angling for power but not to replace Putin, instead he's engaging in intramural fighting for positions of power in Kremlin.
"Prigozhin is an exception that proves the rule as anyone else would end up ‘falling’ out of a building."
Amid all this tension, Putin was believed to have postponed his annual marathon conference.
The "Direct Line" phone-in usually runs for hours and involves the warlord fielding questions from ordinary citizens about a range of policy issues.
It has been going since 2001, with Putin missing the event last year for the first time in 18 years.
Prior to that, the last time he missed the event was in 2004.
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Some Russian sources reported that Putin would strategically hold the conference just before the March 2024 presidential elections.
In December 2022, sickly Putin cancelled his annual press conference for the first time in 10 years and axed his New Year's Eve party at the Kremlin.
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