As Was Expected...

... they "fogged" the image of the cabin but it is clear that new TU-160M2 is a completely new aircraft. It has glass cockpit and new navigation-targeting, and comm and EW complex. Putin wanted to try it himself.

Ah, this "crazy SOB" as Biden calls him. Just confirms my thesis that one can not buy either class or history. In related news, the Defense Minister of mighty France complains:

A month ago, a Russian air traffic control system threatened to shoot French aircraft in the Black Sea. It's like the cold war, we have a return to a particularly aggressive Russian position. Russia is playing with the thresholds of aggression," he says. 

I guess, Russia's VKS should start flying near France and then see the reaction and compare. Oh, I am sure French will come up with some sophisticated BS and hurl very cultured profanities at Russians. There is one problem, though, TU-160s or TU-95s, or TU-22M3Ms do not even need to leave Russia's airspace to reach anywhere in the Northern hemisphere. It is called capability--a precise substance France doesn't have in the air.