Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) listens to Andrei Terlikov, the head of the Ural Transport Machine Building Design Bureau, as they watch Russian infantry fighting vehicle with the Armata Universal Combat Platform and a T-14 Armata main battle tank at he Uralvagonzavod factory in the Urals city of Nizhny Tagil, Russia November 25, 2015. Speaking on a trip to the Ural mountains city of Nizhny Tagil, Putin ordered the despatch of an advanced weapons system to Russia's Khmeimim air base in Syria's Latakia province. (Photo by Alexei Nikolskyi/Reuters/Sputnik/Kremlin)





Vladimir Putin (centre R-L), Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko visit Russian Defense Ministry's control room in Moscow, December 23, 2014. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)





Vladimir Putin takes part in a wreath laying ceremony to commemorate the beginning of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany in 1941 at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall in Moscow June 22, 2012. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)





Vladimir Putin joins soldiers in their canteen during a visit to a military base in the Moscow region February 22, 2012. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/Reuters/RIA Novosti)





Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attend a welcoming ceremony on-board guided missile cruiser Moskva at the Black Sea port of Sochi, August 12, 2014. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)





Vladimir Putin uses a pair of binoculars to observe troops in action during a training exercise named Kavkaz 2012 in Krasnodar region September 17, 2012. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/RIA Novosti)





Vladimir Putin (5th R), Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (6th R) and armed forces Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov (4th R) attend a meeting on Russian air force's activity in Syria at the national defense control center in Moscow, Russia, November 17, 2015. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/Reuters/Sputnik/Kremlin)





Vladimir Putin poses for a selfie with members of the youth military patriotic club "Vympel" (The Pennant) during a flower-laying ceremony at a monument of Minin and Pozharsky, the leaders of a liberation struggle against foreign invaders in 1612, on National Unity Day in Red Square in Moscow, Russia November 4, 2015. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/Reuters)





Vladimir Putin stands with a gun at a shooting gallery of the new GRU military intelligence headquarters building as he visits it in Moscow November 8, 2006. (Photo by Reuters/ITAR-TASS/Presidential Press Service)





Vladimir Putin takes part in celebrations for Navy Day in Baltiysk, Kaliningrad region, Russia, July 26, 2015. (Photo by Mikhail Klimentyev/Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)





Vladimir Putin walks with a rifle in southern Siberia's Tuva region August 15, 2007. (Photo by Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)





Vladimir Putin signs autographs for Russian soldiers in Gudermes, east of Grozny, during the conflict in Chechnya, January 1, 2000. (Photo by Reuters)





Vladimir Putin looks at a model of the Tupolev TU-160 bomber, or Blackjack, that was presented to him on his arrival in Olenegorsk, Russia, August 16, 2005. Putin flew in the Tupolev TU-160 bomber and took part in the launch of cruise missiles in the Arctic north. (Photo by Reuters/ITAR-TASS/Presidential Press Service)





Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at the opening of the Army-2015 international military forum in Kubinka, outside Moscow, Russia, June 16, 2015. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)





Vladimir Putin observes troops in action during a training exercise named Kavkaz 2012 in the Krasnodar region September 17, 2012. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/RIA Novosti)





Vladimir Putin talks to servicemen during a training exercise at the Donguz testing range in Orenburg region, Russia, September 19, 2015. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/RIA Novosti)





Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (2nd R) talk on the deck of guided missile cruiser Moskva at the Black Sea port of Sochi, August 12, 2014. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)





Vladimir Putin visits an exhibition at the MAKS International Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia, August 25, 2015. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/Reuters)





Vladimir Putin takes aim with a model assault rifle at an electronic shooting range during his visit to a research facility of national railway company "Russian Railways" in Moscow April 26, 2012. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/RIA Novosti)