Every week that the war in Ukraine continues, the risk of a coup against Vladimir Putin by the FSB is increasing, an informant at the heart of the Russian intelligence service claims.
He claims that chaos and discontent has erupted in the ranks of the KGB successor due to the failures of Russian forces on the fronts in Ukraine and that Putin's position at the helm of the country is increasingly shaky noting that before days ago the Ukrainian secret services spoke of an organised plot to dethrone and possibly assassinate the Russian President by an influential group of people opposed to Putin which is being formed among Russia's business and political elite.
When Putin unleashed the invasion a month ago, a quick overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected government seemed likely, but as we now enter four weeks of war, things are going against the Kremlin's plans on the fronts.
Speaking to the Times, Vladimir Osetchkin, wanted by Russian authorities for his revelations of gross human rights abuses in Russian prisons, revealed newer evidence from his source in the FSB that suggests that anger against the Russian president is brewing in its ranks.
FSB officials do not want a return to the stone age of the USSR
Putin is reportedly blaming the secret services for the failure to swiftly take over Ukraine, but FSB officials are frustrated by the increasingly sweeping sanctions the West is imposing on Russia. Citing his source, Osetchkin told the British newspaper that senior agency officials cannot go "to their villas in Italy" or "take their children to Disneyland in Paris."
FSB officials' salaries are much higher than the average in Russia, and the state also grants them apartments. Putin himself, a former KGB spy, was at the helm of the FSB from 1998-1999 before he took over the presidency from Boris Yeltsin.
"For twenty years Putin brought stability to Russia and people in the system - FSB officials, prosecutors and police officers - lived a good life," Osetchkin said. But with Western sanctions all that is gone, the Russian economy is teetering, the ruble has plummeted and they are used to a high standard of living FSB agents "don't want to go back to the USSR years," he added."
He argued that frustrated agents are willing to change the entire system if necessary. "Every week and every month that this war continues, the possibility of a mutiny by those who staff the security services increases," he said.
Putin's war will turn into a "complete failure."
Osetchkin did not name his source for obvious reasons, but said he was a head of a small department of analysts within the FSB and that he began contacting him last October after the human rights advocacy group Gulagu.net's Osetchkin posted a video from a prison in Saratov, southwestern Russia, that captured the torture of a prisoner by FSB officials.
Two 24 hours before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the informant told Osetchkin that FSB officials were trying to provoke a riot in Ukrainian prisons that would lead to widespread unrest in the country.
Osetchkin's name made the rounds this month when he published a March 4 report by his source, who estimated that Putin's war in Ukraine would turn into a "complete failure" comparable to the collapse of Nazi Germany.
The report added that Russian forces "have no options for victory, only for defeat" because of rabid Ukrainian resistance, which experts say has taken many in Moscow, including Putin, by surprise.
Source: iefimerida.gr
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