The chances of a coup in Moscow are increasing, anonymous Russian intelligence sources told Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian dissident in exile, as quoted by the London Times: But these rumors should always be treated with caution
The likelihood of a coup d’état in Moscow leading to Vladimir Putin’s ouster is increasing by the week. An anonymous FSB official wrote so in 11 letters to Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian dissident in exile, arguing that there was great chaos and discontent in Moscow’s intelligence services. Osechkin’s words are reported by the Times of London, but as always it is necessary to strike the balance between propaganda and reality.
According to the letters released by Osechkin, an activist who has exposed abuses in Russian prisons and is now on the Kremlin’s Most Wanted List, the agents are the federal security service, the FSB, which replaced the KGB in 1995 and is its head was Putin between 1998 and 1999. The mere fact that Russian agents are talking and risking their lives is a sign of their anger towards Putin, Osechkin commented to the Times
The founder of Gulagu.net has been in contact with his source since November, but has only been publishing the emails since March 4th: on that day, the Russian official, who would work in a small analytics department of the FSB, would have described the war as a denotes total failure. The text posted online by Osechkin was 2,000 words long and was read by 28 million people: numerous experts analyzed it and found it authentic.
In an interview from his native France, where he has lived in exile since 2015, Osechkin said that Putin has been creating stability in Russia for 20 years. FSB officials, police officers, prosecutors and people within the system may have had a good life, but it’s all over now. They realize that this war is a catastrophe for the economy, for humanity, and they don’t want to go back to Soviet times.
In fact, FSB agents and officials are considered the new nobility in Russia, they have salaries far above average, and not only the difficulties on the battlefield in Ukraine drove them from the Kremlin, but also the effects of the sanctions: they are no longer employed in the Being able to vacation in their villas in Italy and take their kids to Disneyland, Paris, Osechkin said, saying that with each week and month this war goes on, the possibility of a rebellion by the security services increases. .
Rumors of a possible coup d’état against Putin have been circulating for some time, fueled by the progress of the war in Ukraine, which various analysts say is not going according to plan, despite Russian denials. On Wednesday, the news of the escape from Moscow of Anatoly Chubais, former Deputy Prime Minister of Yeltsin and the President’s special representative to international organizations, one of the main figures who spoke out against the war in Ukraine: a signal that was interpreted as a sign becomes first crack in the entourage of the Russian President.
On Sunday, some Ukrainian media outlets relaunched Ukrainian news sources, saying a group of influential figures was forming among the Russian business and political elite ready to get rid of Putin. These sources also came up with hypotheses about different ways to carry out the coup: poisoning, sudden illness, or an accident. The time horizon would be tight: the aim would be to depose the president as quickly as possible and to restore economic relations with the West.
A section of the elite has already elected Putin’s successor: Aleksandr Bortnikov, the director of the FSB. Some highranking officers of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation have been placed under house arrest in recent days, and the tsar has blamed them for the failure of the war in Ukraine: the head of the foreign intelligence service, Sergey Beseda, and his deputy, Anatoly Bolyuch, have been accused of providing false information and money stolen to recruit agents, compile intelligence, and organize subversive operations.
In reality, according to General Vincenzo Camporini in an interview with Corriere, it is possible that Beseda and Boljukh were forced to report the information they wanted to hear to the Tsar, and that wrong strategic decisions were then made based on this information. In fact, immediately before the invasion, Putin had humiliated the head of Russian intelligence Sergei Naryshkin for expressing a contradictory opinion during the session of the National Security Council: the words spoken that day speak clearly, Sergei Yevgenievich are now dated FBI used to recruit disgruntled Russian embassy officials in Washington.
As Paolo Valentino wrote a few days ago, Putin seems to have a solid hard core in public opinion, supporting his decisions also thanks to the strength and penetration of his propaganda. “It has total power says an Italian manager who was in Russia for many years and while the situation is pushing some of the oligarchs to voice dissatisfaction, these voices currently have no political or military side.”
But nobody denies the creaking, the wheezing: signals that something is moving. I believe that Putin can also fall, but not now, it takes time, said Paolo Valentino Valerij Solovei, a political scientist and historian who previously always headed the institutional affairs department at the famous MGIMO, the Institute for International Relations at Moscow University fired for his independent views.
According to Solovei, the situation will continue to worsen, the war in Ukraine will affect our conscience and our standard of living and will have serious social and economic consequences that could lead to a political crisis. The scholar considers the dissatisfaction of the dissidents, oligarchs and entrepreneurs to be an important and decisive factor: at the moment they are not ready to speak out, but if the drift continues, they could unite, they have ties to some political groups and together they can put very strong pressure on Putin. But that won’t happen before autumn, the strong regime and the tightening of the screws of repression have already shown that it will not tolerate contradiction.
March 24, 2022 (Change March 24, 2022 | 15:32)
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