Russian state television cut President Vladimir Putin’s speech mid-sentence as he was addressing tens of thousands of supporters at Moscow’s main football stadium on Friday.

As the Russian leader was addressing crowds, state television switched to showing a clip of patriotic music.

Putin was cut mid-sentence as he was saying: “It so happened that the beginning of the operation coincided by chance with the birthday of one of our outstanding military…”.

Russian state television is tightly controlled and such interruptions are highly unusual.

Putin was speaking at an event in support of the Russian army in Ukraine and to mark the annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.