ONE of Vladimir Putin’s limousines exploded and caught fire in Moscow as the tyrant orders sewers to be searched and the pat down of his own guards.

A massive explosion destroyed an Aurus limousine from Putin’s “official car fleet” on a street near Moscow’s FSB secret service headquarters in Lubyanka.

Footage showed that the fire which started in the engine of the £275,000 Aurus Senat had spread to the interior of the vehicle.

Workers from nearby restaurants and bars had poured into the Sretenka Street to try to help before fire services arrived.

Stunned onlookers watched on as black smoke billowed out of the front of the destroyed vehicle as the fire continued to rage.

Footage taken from another angle appeared to show that the rear of the vehicle was also damaged.

It remains unclear who was driving the vehicle at the time of the dramatic incident, though it is thought to belong to Putin’s Presidential Property Management Department.

And no report has been made about what may have caused the sudden blaze but those inside the car were not injured.

Putin, 72, routinely uses the Russian-made cars and has gifted the limousines, for example to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

The incident comes as the tyrant continues to display intense paranoia about assassination plots.

Recently, remarkable video footage captured a Federal Protection Service (FSO) officer conducting individual body searches on servicemen from a ceremonial guard in Murmansk.

He patted down the servicemen for hidden weapons or explosive devices as they stood waiting for the Kremlin dictator to lay a wreath by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Reports say magazines were removed from their guns and plugs fitted into the chambers as Putin fears assassination from his own troops.

Putin used his trip to Russia’s Arctic capital Murmansk to declare he intends to wipe out Ukraine.

He boarded nuclear submarine Arkhangelsk and vowed: “Not long ago I said we’d grind them [Ukraine] down — now it looks like we’ll finish them off.”

In 2023 it was revealed by a former bodyguard that Putin has little trust in his own security team, getting his protection personnel to operate his washing machine.

“This is how much he fears for his life,” the defected bodyguard told an independent Russian TV station that was banned from the country.

Earlier this week there was another sign of the deep concern for Putin’s security amid the unpopular war with Ukraine.

FSO officers were seen opening sewer hatches and rubbish dumps in a hunt for bombs close to a Moscow venue where Putin was speaking.

A source close to the Kremlin previously revealed that Russia’s special services had “ramped up the already strict security measures surrounding Putin to an unprecedented degree”.

Last summer, reports claimed that the paranoid despot had started wearing bulletproof vests to public appearances as he increasingly fears being taken out over the war in Ukraine or by Islamic terrorists.

The Kremlin is on “heightened” alert over its invasion of Ukraine – but is also “rattled” by attacks on high-ranking politicians in Europe and Asia.

A Russian source told a local outlet: “The Kremlin takes Vladimir Putin’s security very seriously.

“He is protected by a whole army of visible and invisible guards.”