A panicked Russia contacted the United States over fears Ukraine was about to assassinate Vladimir Putin at a military parade last month, it has emerged. Putin and defence minister Andrei Belousov had appeared at Russia’s Navy Day parade in the country’s second city, St Petersburg, on July 28 – but Moscow claims it unearthed a covert Ukrainian plot to eliminate both of them. On Russian state TV, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country was so worried about the plot on Putin that Belousov himself got in touch with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss whether the …