Russian strongman, Vladimir Putin was cut cut off on Friday, March 18 by  Russian state televison during an address to a huge rally of the country’s citizens on the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea according to reports.

According to Russian website, svoboda.org, the Russian President was talking when a state broadcast cut to patriotic songs – prompting confusion among audiences.

For several minutes it was not known what had happened. A Kommersant correspondent reported that Putin had finished his speech at the stadium – it was no longer on the air.

About 20 minutes later, “Russia-24” began to show Putin’s speech again. This time it was not interrupted – it turned out that after the interruption of the broadcast, the president spoke for only about 20 seconds. 

During the address, thousands of people waving flags emblazoned with the symbol ‘Z’ packed into Moscow’s World Cup stadium to hear Putin speak.

He hailed the ‘special operation’ in Ukraine as a ‘success’.

After Putin’s speech, the concert ended.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the broadcast failure was caused by a “technical failure on the server.”