Vladimir Putin’s spokesman refused to comment on whether Iran’s new supreme leader had been secretly flown in to Russia for life-saving surgery.

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was reportedly critically wounded in the Israeli strike that killed his father, Ali Khamenei.

The Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov failed to confirm or deny the reports that surfaced in Kuwait based on “Iranian sources” that Mojtaba Khamenei had been smuggled out of Iran and was being treated in one of Putin’s palace clinics in Russia.

“We do not comment on such reports,” Peskov said.

A senior source close to Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba purportedly told Al-Jarida outlet in Kuwait that the wounded new supreme leader was transported to Moscow on a Russian military aircraft. This was a “highly secret operation because of his health and security situation”.

Upon arrival he supposedly underwent a “successful” surgical operation and then received treatment in a hospital located inside one a Putin presidential palace. However, there is no independent verification of the version.

Israel is on record as saying it “knows where he is” after Donald Trump intimated he may already be dead.

Russia is suspected to be sharing intelligence with the Iranian regime, assisting in its strikes on Western military bases in the Middle East.

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