Gran, 59, trains with Ukraine’s home guard as everyday people take up arms to defend borders from Russia
A GRAN has taken up arms to defend Ukraine against Russia as she signed up for her country's home guard to face down Vladimir Putin.
Rumia, 59, was joined by hundreds of other every day people who are preparing to protect their homes from a potentially imminent invasion.
It was the first time that the administrative clerk had joined the training with Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces (TDF).
The TDF can be seen as similar to the Home Guard - the rag tag reserve army and civilian militia who protected Britain during World War 2.
Rumia is from the Crimean Tartar ethnic group who are native to the Crimean Peninsula - which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
And now she was pictured training with a wooden gun alongside other volunteer soldiers, including children and youngsters, on the outskirts of Kiev.
One little lad, aged 4, joined in the drills which helped prepare the civilians amid fears of a full scale invasion.
Russia has always denied any aggressive intent to Ukraine.
But despite this, Putin has massed more than 100,000 troops along the Russian border with Ukraine and in neighbouring Belarus.
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Ukrainian officials and the West fear there could be an attack over the next month - with a flurry of cyber attacks and flashes of violence in the Donbas region.
The Donbas has been at war since 2014 as Russian-backed separatists fight to break away from the Ukraine.
Kiev and Moscow have been feuding for the past eight years as Russia doesn't like the fact Ukraine is becoming closer to the West.
Both former Soviet states used to be allies - but Ukraine's government now seeks to draw closer ties the US, UK and Europe, potentially even joining NATO.
Paranoid leader Vlad sees Kiev signing up for the defensive alliance as a direct threat to Russia.
Ukraine's leaders have urged their people not to panic as the shadow of invasion looms - but they are taking no chances.
It comes as:
- Intelligence services revealed Russia is preparing 'sleeper cells' to attack Ukraine
- Putin is feared to be planning a 'false flag' attack to give him an excuse to invade
- Boxing legend and former champ Wladimir Klitshcko signed up to fight against Russia
- Boris Johnson warned Putin that Ukrainians will be ready to 'fight to the death' to defend their borders
- Washington is sending 3,000 troops to Europe in bid to deter Russia for invading Ukraine
Meanwhile, new intelligence report today claimed Russia has put together a secret war plan for invasion and total conquest of Ukraine.
As reported in the German publication , a foreign intelligence service says it has gathered details of Russia's "post-war plans" for Ukraine, which it says are currently being discussed in top Russian military circles.
Even though Russia has not invaded Ukraine, preparations for this scenario are already underway.
According to the report, the Russian army plans to encircle and besiege Ukraine's major cities after destroying the country's forces in the field.
After this, secret service sleeper cells already smuggled into Ukraine, as well as local politicians loyal to Vladimir Putin, would be activated in the towns, while "secret service agents would penetrate into the cities".
They would have the task of "establishing pro-Russia leaderships in the cities" which would then "agree on the surrender and handover" to the Russian occupiers.
According to BILD, Russian intelligence forces would next "seize strategic facilities, eliminate threats, recruit those willing to cooperate and establish a new leadership in the conquered cities."
This practice would be used in all of Ukraine's key cities until all of them "peacefully" came under Russian control.
Following the capture of Ukraine's cities, the report states, Putin plans to set up a puppet parliament in the country, a so-called "People's Rada".
This would replace the Ukrainian parliament and declare it null and void.
Security service sources state: "This People's Rada will become the puppet legislature of Ukraine, peppered with so-called representatives previously selected by the Russian secret service."
Out of this sham parliament would emerge a "backup government" which would rule the country according to Russia's will.
According to the secret service, this would give the coup "the appearance of democracy and legal protection".
To push through such a plan would require massive propaganda efforts by Russian media in Ukraine and the West, while pro-Russian "experts" and politicians would be used to justify the invasion and takeover of Ukraine.
Next, would follow the darkest stage of Putin's alleged plans - the breaking of ordinary Ukrainians' resistance by the puppet government.
The report states that the government's role "would be to declare a state of emergency and, particularly threatening, to implement the Russian plan to set up camps in which those Ukrainians who showed themselves to be uncooperative would be sorted out."
Camps for the detention of pro-Ukrainian activists are allegedly already being planned, with lists drawn up of who will be locked up.
Newly-established pro-Russian secret services would then help with the terrorising of Ukraine's population to break the country's resistance, using the suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Belarus after 2020's stolen election as a potential model.
It is alleged that Russia's security service the FSB is currently training pro-Russian groups for deployment in Ukraine and that Putin has tasked them with recruiting Ukrainian politicians and eliminating opponents of the Kremlin.
The end goal of this invasion would be the calling of a nationwide referendum on absorbing Ukraine into Russia.
According to the report, "a full-scale invasion is currently the most likely scenario".
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Military expert Robert Lee from King's College London told BILD: "Russia will probably have most of the armed forces it plans to deploy in a week and could then escalate the situation in the short term if it so chooses".
Russia's embassy has denied any such plan to invade and take over Ukraine, branding the report "a strange mixture of speculation and rumours" that "the embassy fundamentally does not comment on".