The flights are necessary to protect Russia because 'other states', an allusion to the US and its allies, continue patrols of their own, he said on national television.

In the first flight, 14 bombers and six supporting airplanes took off at midnight on Friday and were flying over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the North Pole, said a Russian Defence Ministry statement.

The news followed earlier sightings of Russian patrols near Guam and over the North Sea. A US State Department spokesman said it was Russia's decision if 'they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again'.

In a more personal muscle-flexing display earlier last week, Mr Putin, 54, allowed photographers to take shots of him stripped to the waist while fishing in nippy weather in Siberia.

Other holiday snaps had the President in a Marlboro man pose on horseback.

New York Times