(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Ukraine’s chief intelligence officer said he believes that “a “group of influential” Kremlin officials plan to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin and replace him with a high-ranking bureaucrat, the US Sun reported.
Kyrylo Budanov, who leads the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Defence Ministry, said in the report that the would-be Kremlin assassins believe that the war in Ukraine and the West’s economic retaliation have hurt Russia.
Budanov’s agency said that the conspirators would replace Putin with Alexander Bortnikov, who directs the Federal Security Service, which is the successor organization to the FSK and KGB.
“It is known that Bortnikov and some other influential representatives of the Russian elite are considering various options to remove Putin from power,” Budanov said.
“In particular, poisoning, sudden disease, or any other ‘coincidence’ is not excluded,” he added.
Bortnikov, like Putin, worked in the USSR and then the Russian Federation’s security services during his early life. He and Putin reportedly have a good relationship, and Western observers consider Bortnikov a close ally to Putin.
The Dossier Centre, which investigates internal Kremlin politics, said that Bortnikov runs the FSB as a “state within the state” to maintain Putin’s power.
But the war in Ukraine has allegedly caused Putin and Bortnikov’s relationship to sour.
“It is noteworthy that Bortnikov has recently been disgraced by the Russian dictator,” an anonymous Ukrainian intelligence official said. “The official reason for the disgrace of the FSB leader – fatal miscalculations in the war against Ukraine.”
Bortnikov apparently gave Putin a favorable analysis of the Ukrainian people’s willingness to accept Russian rule and of the Ukrainian army’s ability to resist a Russian invasion.
The members of the “Russian elite” want to end the war and restore normal economic relations with the Western world, including the United States and NATO nations.
An anonymous source said that Budanov’s rumors about assassination “will sow the seeds of paranoia and doubt in the leadership.”
“There is no doubt that as the Russian elite feel the pinch of sanctions that they will be looking at the future with an eye on what a catastrophe this war is for them – and it’s going to get worse,” the source added.
