An increasingly paranoid Vladimir Putin has banned Russians living near the Ukrainian border from using dating apps,amid fears that Ukrainian spies will use them to gather intelligence.
Ukraine currently occupies a swathe of Russian territory after an audacious thrust into Putin's fiefdom.
The Kremlin dictator's Department for Combating Illegal Use of Information Technology issued the app ban to people living in three Russian regions,Kursk,Belgorod and Bryansk,all of which border Ukraine.
Servicemen in these regions were also warned of the threat of being snared by seemingly desirable women on matchmaking sites,including popular Russian dating site Mamba,the largest in the country.
'The use of online dating services is strongly discouraged,' Putin's government warned.
A man rides bicycle past the debris of a multi-storey building,destroyed few days earlier following a strike in the town of Myrnohrad,on August 21,2024
'Never open any links (hyperlinks) received from strangers in messengers or SMS messages,' they are told.
It comes just days after Ukraine launched what is believed to be the largest ever drone strike against Moscow since Vladimir Putin's invasion began in February 2022.
Russian officials said they shot down 11 drones flying to Moscow,and were forced to fend off a further 23 over the border region of Bryansk,six over the Belgorod region,three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region.
Moscow forced the temporary closure of three airports – but no casualties or significant damage to buildings was reported,according to the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
Vladimir PutinUkraine
