Under Putin, however, loyalty and continuity are still prized. Last year, for instance, the Kremlin announced the replacement of Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s long-serving minister of defense. But instead of being fired outright for a lack of battlefield success, Shoigu was moved sideways to a post as the secretary of Russia’s Security Council.

Putin is massing air defences around Moscow for a long winter of drone attacks. That means leaving other areas undefended, but he may have little choice in the matter.

Moscow has now claimed to have included parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions into Russia’s Southern Military District, as it moves closer to formalising the forced conscription of Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories.

Russian police detained Lyubov Sobol, a close ally of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, at a rally in central Moscow on Saturday organised to call for the opposition politician's release, a Reuters witness said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had said last week that the countries would continue to work "side by side" and look to the future "with confidence"

Alexei Zhuravlev also said Russia isn't restricted from sending offensive weapons, such as the Oreshnik ballistic missile, to Venezuela.

President Trump has made it easier for countries that are close to Russia and China to build ties with the United States. Those countries are embracing the opportunity.

The Kremlin sits on Borovitsky Hill, rising above the Moscow River in the center of the city. Its first white-stone walls and towers went up in 1367-68, and a rebuild little more than a century later employed skilled artists and architects from across Europe to shape the site into roughly its modern form and appearance.