A senior Kremlin official has reached out to Western diplomats and intelligence chiefs to help end the war in Ukraine, it was claimed last night.
The source is said to have claimed that much of Moscow’s elite is very concerned about the course of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the neighboring country and alarmed at the sweeping sanctions the West is imposing in response.
A document allegedly distributed to Western intelligence agencies and seen by The Mirror says: “A representative of Putin’s inner circle has sent a signal about a desire for negotiations.
“The mood of the Kremlin elite is panic.”
It is unclear which member of Moscow’s top officials may have undermined Putin’s plans, but the document allegedly described the insider as a “pillar of the regime” in Russia.
The source is said to have claimed that much of Moscow’s elite is very concerned about the course of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the neighboring country (Putin pictured).
The source is allegedly a senior Kremin official who has been called a “pillar” of Putin’s regime (Red Square, Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow).
A Ukrainian diplomatic source told The Mirror they would not be surprised to hear that senior Kremlin officials are trying to link up with Western intelligence agencies behind Putin’s back.
“It is often the case, as was the case in the closing stages of World War II, that officials on a side concerned about their future make moves to secure it,” the source said.
If a top politician in Moscow publicly expressed a desire for peace in Ukraine or criticized Putin, his life and family would be in grave danger.
Anatoly Chubais, a former deputy prime minister who oversaw Russia’s transformation from a communist to a capitalist economy, resigned as Putin’s special envoy to international organizations in March and left Russia to live in exile in protest at the war.
The 67-year-old fell suddenly and seriously ill late last month after experiencing numbness in his limbs and is believed to be in intensive care suffering from a rare neurological disorder.
Pictured: The first Kremlin official to resign because of the war, Anatoly Chubais, left in March and right in August in hospital in Italy
Chubais’ case is just the latest in a series of mysterious illnesses and violent deaths – more than a dozen – that have afflicted Russian businessmen, officials and their close families since Putin’s “special military operation” began in Ukraine and Western sanctions were imposed.
On February 25 – the day after the invasion of Ukraine began – a senior official at Russian energy giant Gazprom, Alexander Tyulakov, was found dead in his garage.
The “senior finance and security official at the level of the deputy general manager” had died by hanging.
A “farewell letter” was found nearby, the contents of which were not disclosed. He had reportedly been “severely beaten” before his death.
Former Kremlin official and Gazprombank Vice President Vladislav Avayev, 51, (pictured) was found dead by his daughter Anastasia, 26, on suspicion he had killed his “pregnant” wife Yelena, 47, and daughter Maria, 13 , killed before he took his own life, in Moscow
On April 18, Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former Kremlin official and vice president of Gazprombank, the energy company’s financial subsidiary, was found dead by his daughter Anastasia in his family’s £2million apartment on the 14th floor of a Moscow apartment block.
And not only Avayev – but also his wife Elena, 47, and their other daughter Maria, 13. All had been shot and a pistol was discovered in the dead man’s hand.
Meanwhile, millionaire Sergei Protosenya, 55, a former deputy chairman of Novatek – Russia’s largest private gas company, of which Gazprom is the main shareholder – was also found hanged in his villa garden.
The bodies of his wife Natalia and 18-year-old daughter were also in the house. They had been hacked to death with an ax while they slept.
These are just a few examples of many instances in recent months where Russian elites and their families have mysteriously met an untimely end following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
It is unclear what help the Kremlin insider is said to have offered to Western secret services to end the war in Ukraine.