Anger at Vladimir Putin’s handling of the Ukraine invasion means that the chance of him being overthrown in a coup by the security service is increasing every week, a whistleblower claims.
Russian forces have failed to make quick inroads into Ukraine following the start of the “special military operation” on February 24 and appear to have stalled in their bid to overthrow the government in Kyiv.
While Putin has heavily censored Russian media there has been discontent at the invasion of a country which to many is seen as being like a brother, while now heavy casualties by the Russian army, reported to be as high as 15,000, is making it more unpopular.
A month has now gone by since the launch of the invasion and there is even evidence in some areas of Ukraine that the Russians are being pushed back.
And a Federal Security Service [FSB] source has told Vladimir Osechkin, a dissident Russian who is wanted by authorities for exposing abuse in prisons, that anger is building towards Putin.
Putin’s own frustration at the slowness of progress in Ukraine has seen him look to blame FSB officers and Osechkin’s source said that this has gone down very badly.
Osechkin told The Times that high-ranking officers are also angry at the sanctions that have impacted on their ability to spend their wealth in the West.
Putin, a former KGB agent, knows the FSB well having been its director from 1998 to 1999.
"For 20 years Putin created stability in Russia. FSB officers, policemen, state prosecutors, those people inside the system, were able to live good lives," Osechkin told The Times.
"For every week and every month that this war continues, the possibility of a rebellion by those in the security services increases."
Osechkin’s source is believed to be in an analytics department of the secret service.
With tempers simmering, Putin is believed to be wary of his close ally and friend, defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who is in overall charge of the stalling military operation.
Long-time ally FSB security service head Alexander Bortnikov, rumoured to be a stand-in should Putin fall in a coup, is also under pressure, as is Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian general staff.
Another target of Putin's fury is Igor Kostyukov, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed forces, who may face imminent removal.
Russian security expert Andrei Soldatov said military counterintelligence is probing an FSB security service department.
He told the New Yorker: "That could mean that, finally, people in Moscow started asking themselves why the US intelligence was so accurate.
"Military counterintelligence is mostly about mole-hunting, identifying the sources of leaks. So it looks like now Putin is getting angry, not only with bad intelligence and the bad performance in Ukraine but also about the sourcing of the US intelligence about the invasion, and why US intelligence was so good before the invasion, and why the Americans knew so many things about what was coming."
The climate of fear means that intelligence on the scale of Ukraine's likely resistance to Russian invaders was hidden from Putin. But Soldatov does not expect a move by his inner circle to assassinate Putin, despite the increasing hostile treatment they face.
"I think now Putin is almost in no danger," he told ZDF Heute in Germany. He has two security services, who are primarily responsible for ensuring that nothing happens to Putin personally.
"We know that he himself is a former intelligence officer, who understands the different risks. He often claims that he successfully survived from 12 to 13 assassination attempts on his life. In this sense, everything is safe for him."
