Vladimir Putin's legs twitched uncontrollably as he chuckled and cracked an odd joke about a "rubber bum" in front of a group of highly intelligent Russian schoolkids.
The Russian President was visiting a group of pre-selected high-IQ students in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad after they spent two weeks in isolation when Covid-19 returned to the area.
Mumbling as he addressed them, his legs can be seen spasming throughout the rare public appearance.
Putin has been accused of trying to brainwash the youths with his alternative view of Russian history, while suggesting Ukraine - where he has caused the mass slaughter of thousands - should be a united territory under Moscow's control.
During the speech, the warlord said he was baffled why kids didn't know that Ukraine was once part of Russia and the Soviet Union.
He spoke of the 2014 'coup' in which a pro-Russian president was ousted in Ukraine.
Known as the 'Revolution of Dignity', it saw Viktor Yanukovych ousted as president, accused of looting around £86 billion from the country.
A new government was swept in on the basis of tackling corruption and quickly became increasingly allied with the West. Russia then invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in February and March 2014, sparking a war against separatists in the neighbouring Donbas region.
Rebel fighters in Donestk and Luhansk were able to take control of some areas of Ukraine, backed by Russia.
Putin claimed the current escalation in the conflict is merely a 'special operation' against a Nazi government on the borders of Russia, despite him being the orchestrator of a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
This is an entirely false claim, but a lie Putin continues to spout to his own people to justify the war.
He told the children: "Everybody thinks that some kind of aggression is coming from the Russian side today.
"But nobody understands, nobody knows that, after the coup in 2014, the residents of Donetsk, a large part of Luhansk and Crimea did not want to recognise the coup."
He added: "A war was started against them - and it was waged for eight years. On the territory of today's Ukraine, they began to create an anti-Russian enclave that threatens our country.
"Therefore, our lads, who are fighting there, are protecting both the residents of the Donbas region, and defending Russia itself.
Another part of Putin's justification is his apparent view that Ukraine is "ethnically Russian".
In 2021, he published a 5,000-word essay titled 'On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians' which claimed the people of the two countries are "one people".
Putin and his Kremlin allies claim that after Ukraine declared independence in 1991, it is not a 'real' country, despite years of history that brought the country together.
Claiming that "Russia was robbed", Putin concluded that "I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia."
The school meeting comes amid a push from the Kremlin for schools to be more patriotic, with pupils beginning the week by raising the Russian flag and playing the national anthem.
