A plot has emerged to assassinate Vladimir Putin and remove him from power, according to a Ukrainian intelligence service. They say the president is being targeted by a group of "Russian elites" who have already selected a successor to the 69-year-old.
The Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine believes a plan has been drawn up to take drastic action as there is dismay at the impact the war and subsequent sanctions have had on the Russian economy. FSB director Oleksandr Bortnikov has been lined up to replace Putin, reports the Daily Mirror.
The group of powerful Kremlin insiders want to remove Putin from power as soon as possible and restore economic ties with the West. The war in Ukraine has destroyed many of their alliances with their European and worldwide counterparts.
“It is known that Bortnikov and some other influential representatives of the Russian elite are considering various options to remove Putin from power,” said the Chief Directorate of Intelligence. “In particular, poisoning, sudden disease, or any other ‘coincidence’ is not excluded.”
The agency suggested the losses incurred by Chechen forces in the north of the country may have influenced the alleged plot. This weekend Ukraine said that part of the notorious Chechen fighting squadron had been sent back to Russia after many of their troops were killed.
The suggestion that Bortnikov is the man to replace Putin is surprising, given how the two men have worked their way up through Russian society together. They both served on the KGB in Leningrad, before Bortnikov took over the rebranded security agency.
Bortnikov’s FSB is both the brain and the heart of the Putin regime, a “state within the state,” according to an in-depth investigation by the Dossier Centre. At the beginning of the conflict, a usually camera shy Bortnikov delivered the goods for Putin when he claimed that two of his border guards had captured a Ukrainian military saboteur alive on Russian soil.
He said the saboteur had malicious intentions against the state, before they were taken out by his people. While the claims were pre-empted and then debunked by the West, they served as a means of justifying the war within Russia.
Bortnikov has now fallen out of favour with the Moscow despot, over errors in the Ukraine war. Putin has sacked eight generals in a bid to divert blame from himself for the bloody war which has killed almost 15,000 of his troops in just 25 days.
The elite plotters, according to Ukrainian intelligence, picked out 70 year-old Bortnikov because they believe he could spearhead the restoration of economic ties with the West. They are increasingly worried about Russia becoming a pariah state, shunned by the West and having their houses, bank accounts and yachts seized.
Urals-born Bortnikov is believed to have a network of insiders working and living within Ukraine, where he ran a network of agents for many years. He also heads the FSB’s economic arm, playing a key role in building Russia’s post Soviet-era growth, as well as leafing counter-intelligence operations to ensure it was not penetrated by western spies.
But it is thought Putin is now furious with him for allowing his military commanders to be wrong-footed by the ferocious Ukrainian defence against the invasion. Already Russian security council deputy head Dmitry Medvedev has sacked FSB deputy Vyacheslav Ushakov over bungles in intelligence that led to the invasion.
The sacking has also left Bortnikov, who apparently suggested it, in disgrace with Putin. One Ukrainian intelligence source revealed recently: “The official reason for the disgrace of the FSB leader – fatal miscalculations in the war against Ukraine. Bortnikov and his department were responsible for analysing the mood of Ukraine and the ability of the Ukrainian army.”
Now the Russian leader may be facing a growing plot against himself. A western source said last night: “These rumours and suspicions within the Moscow inner-circle will sow the seeds of paranoia and doubt in the leadership.
“There is a significant suspicion that a small number of people might actually now try to get rid of the Russian President but whether they will succeed remains to be seen.
“Certainly they are being given an awful lot of encouragement by various influential figures in the West and the feeling amongst most people is that enough is enough.”
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