A whistleblowing female medic in Russia’s feared FSB security service has fled abroad and made claims about Vladimir Putin's government.
Dr Maria Dmitriyeva, 31, claimed her high-level sources say Russian President Vladimir Putin will appoint brutal General Sergei ‘Armageddon’ Surovikin as his defence minister.
She also claims there will be new major appointments for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has recruited thousands of mercenary “volunteers” for the war.
Dr Dmitriyeva called on Russian security and defence officials, including her former patients, not to keep taking part in the “crime of the century”.
The doctor is now in France and was interviewed by exiled human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin, founder of Gulagu.net, who has exposed a series of abuses in Putin’s law enforcement machine.
She had worked for the Defence Ministry before the FSB and left Russia on October 12 after she received information from her sources.
She said: “I knew I had to share it, despite me and my loved ones possibly facing serious danger…”
She claimed Surovikin was promised the position of Defence Minister [by Putin], while Kadyrov was also promised new “executive positions”.
However, the appointments have still not been announced, though there had been open-source speculation on such moves.
“Many of my colleagues and patients have access to state secrets,” she said ahead of an interview with a major European broadcaster when she is expected to reveal more.
“I am against the war and I am against [Putin’s] criminal power. I want to voice what my colleagues and patients [in the FSB] cannot…”
She said there was ”discord” among Putin’s top brass over him handing power and state cash to Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Kadyrov is seen in the West as being responsible for multiple human rights abuses and extra-judicial executions.
She claimed his forces had been readied to suppress anti-war protests and unrest.
Dr Dmitriyeva called on security officials not just to stop working but to actively oppose the war.
"This is the crime of the century, and you, Russian people, are all participating in that, supporting and approving it.
