Three months after Vladimir Putin’s bloody “special operation” in Ukraine, his men in the Kremlin are said to be discussing who will replace him.
That’s according to a new report by The independent newspaper MeduzaCiting several sources close to the Russian presidential administration, officials say officials are increasingly fed up with Putin personally.
Some of Putin’s allies within the Kremlin walls are said to have floated the idea of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin becoming his successor, or former President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now Vice Chairman of the Security Council. security. Sergei Kirienko, first deputy chief of staff to the presidential palace, is also said to have been discussed as a candidate.
“It’s not that they want to prepare a plot and overthrow Putin right now. But there is an understanding, or a wish, that in the near future he will not be running the country,” one source was quoted as saying.
“Probably hardly any [members of the elite] who are satisfied with Putin. [The business community] and many members of the government are displeased that the president started the war without thinking about the size of the sanctions – unable to live with such sanctions,” said a source close to the Kremlin. with Medusa.
“Problem [in Russia due to the war] already obvious, and by midsummer they’ll be pouring down from all directions: traffic, healthcare, even agriculture. No one thought of such a scale [of impacts]Another source said.
Discontent is said to be shared both by those close to Putin who want the war to continue and those who want to find a way out.
However, according to Meduza, Putin himself remains deliberately blind, insisting that the country’s growing economic problems have nothing to do with the war. And even officials who are privately discussing potential successors know the only way for Putin to go is if his health – which has been the focus of rumors of a terminal illness for months recently – there was a big turn for the worse. (The head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service on Tuesday repeated claims that Putin is suffering from cancer along with “other serious illnesses,” but he speak There’s no hope “Putin will die tomorrow.”) As one source told Meduza, that’s why “people are swearing but they keep working and bringing the country to war .”
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, signaled on Tuesday that Moscow was fully prepared for the war in Ukraine to continue.
“We don’t chase deadlines,” he said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Arguments and facts. “All the goals set by the Russian president will be fulfilled. There is no other way, because truth, including historical truth, is on our side,” he said.
Even high configuration resignation of a top Russian diplomat who voiced disparagement of the Kremlin’s “warmth” this week did nothing to sway Moscow from the bloody war in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday almost denied the departure of Boris Bondarev, an adviser to the Russian mission to the United Nations in Geneva.
In comments to the Interfax news agency, Peskov said Bondarev’s resignation meant he was “against us”.
“He condemns the actions of the Russian leadership, and the actions of the Russian leadership are supported by almost the entire population of our country,” Peskov said.
