Is Vladimir Putin afraid of dying? Is he seriously ill? Shocking revelations by Russian defector

What happens in Moscow stays in Moscow. Russian president Vladimir Putin is known to be surrounded by loyalists and his world is shrouded in secrecy. In the country, his image as a strongman remains unchanged. While there have been speculations about the 70-year-old leader’s health, there have been no confirmed reports. What’s Putin thinking about the war? Is he afraid? Does he have any regrets? Little is known. But now Russian defector Gleb Karakulov has revealed shocking details about the president, giving us a sneak peek inside his mind. Who is Gleb Karakulov? Gleb Karakulov, 35, is a Russian engineer but no ordinary one. He was an officer in Putin’s secretive elite personal security service, the Federal Guard Service, and was responsible to secure communications. He was part of the unit that provides Putin and his prime minister with 24/7 encrypted communications. While he was not a confidant of Putin, Karakulov spent years in his service, observing him from unusually close quarters from 2009 through late 2022, months after Russia invaded Ukraine. The engineer has reportedly accompanied the Russian president on more than 180 trips over the last 13 years, according to a report by Moscow Times. He first travelled with Putin on a business trip in October 2009. How and why did Karakulov deflect? Karakulov made his escape while on one of his many travels with Putin to the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, last October. His wife and daughter had reportedly accompanied him. On the last day of the trip, 14 October, the family boarded a flight to Turkey. He switched off his phone to shut out the crescendo of urgent, enraged messages, said goodbye to his life in Russia and tried to calm his fast-beating heart, according to a report in The Associated Press. His mother, a supporter of Putin, did not know that her son was going to flee. Karakulov in an interview with the London-based Dossier Center investigative website said that moral opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his fear of dying there drove him to speak out, despite the risks to himself and his family. He said he hoped to inspire other Russians to speak out also. He is the highest-ranking intelligence officer to defect to the West in Russia’s recent history, according to the Dossier Center.

What has Karakulov revealed about Putin? A lot. In an extensive interview with the investigative network, funded by the exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the defector provide unknown and rather shocking details on how Putin functions and gets his information. Putin lives in an “information vacuum” and does not use the mobile phone or internet to get information, Karakulov revealed. “In all my years of service, I haven’t seen him once with a mobile phone,” Karakulov told the Dossier Center. “He doesn’t use the internet or a mobile phone… He only receives information from his closest circle, which means that he lives in an information vacuum.” He relies on intelligence reports from his secret service and Russian television news channels for information, according to the officer. “The president insists on having Russian television in every venue he stays in,” he added. This means he receives only filtered information, a claim that has been long made by the West. The intelligence community in the United States believes that Putin has not been given the real picture of the war and the losses Russia has suffered in the Ukraine war. [caption id=“attachment_12415402” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The Russian president is paranoid and gathers all his information from secret service intelligence reports and Russian TV news channels, according to Gleb Karakulov, a senior Russian intelligence officer. File photo/AP[/caption] Has the war affected Putin? If Karakulov is to be believed, yes. And it has made him more paranoid. Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin prefers to avoid aeroplanes and travel on a special armoured train, the intelligence officer said. The president ordered a bunker at the Russian embassy in Kazakhstan outfitted with a secure communications line in October, the first time Karakulov had ever fielded such a request, reports AP. **Also read: Will the Russia-Ukraine conflict end in 2023?** According to Karakulov, Putin has “lost touch with the world”, and spends most of his time in his residences with his rumoured daughters or partner. He said that the leader has identical offices in his several houses. He shared an anecdote of witnessing Putin at his office in Sochi while a television report said he was holding a meeting at his residence outside Moscow, hundreds of kilometres to the north, reports Moscow Times. Karakulov said that he had confirmed with a colleague the existence of Putin’s opulent palace on the Black Sea after it hit headlines following a high-profile investigation by jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s team. [caption id=“attachment_12415472” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Putin prefers to avoid aeroplanes and travel on a special armoured train, according to Karakulov. File photo/AFP[/caption] He revealed that Putin was “pathologically afraid for his life” and over-suspicious and worried about his security, afraid of assassination attempts and his health. He opts to stay in a “bunker” rather than make regular trips across Russia like earlier. “Our president has become a war criminal,” Karakulov said. “It’s time to end this war and stop being silent.” It’s not just war; the Russian leader is “mortally afraid” of COVID-19 and is isolating himself for the fourth year, the defector reveals. So is Putin seriously ill? In his interviews, Karakulov compared the Putin he worked with in 2009 with the current president and said that it comes across as if he has encountered “two different people”, remarks that are not very different from what others have said. “Now he is very closed. He has protected himself from the whole world with all sorts of barriers, the same quarantine, and the lack of information. His perception of reality has been distorted,” he said. Also read: Is Vladimir Putin dying of cancer? What’s the new ‘health scare’ dogging Russian president According to the officer, those who work with the Russian despot in the same room have to quarantine for two weeks prior. However, he did not know if Putin was seriously ill amid varied speculation results of his deteriorating health. “He’s in better health than many other people his age,” the intelligence officer said. [caption id=“attachment_12415502” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony at the Alexander Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, on 5 April. The intelligence officer did not have any information on the president’s health. Reuters[/caption] In images from April last year, the president appeared frail and bloated as he gripped the side of the table during a meeting with his defence minister. Reports in the media quoting the intelligence community have pointed to Putin’s “erratic behaviour” with speculation that he might be suffering from dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or experiencing ‘roid rage’ from steroid treatment for cancer.

Putin's meeting with Shoigu today shows both depressed & seemingly in bad health. Shoigu has to read his comments to Putin & slurs badly, suggesting that the rumors of his heart attack are likely. He sits badly. Poor performance. Worth watching.https://t.co/SHRRxZxbJf

— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) April 21, 2022

How has Russia reacted to defection? A desertion case has been opened against Karakulov in Russia, according to the news outlets that reported on the Dossier Center’s interviews. The Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment, according to AP. Knowing that his defection violated Russian law, Karakulov said, “It would have been an even bigger crime if I had stayed in my job.” While not speaking directly about his case, an official with a security background from a NATO country said a defection like Karakulov’s “has a very great level of interest.” “That would be seen as a very serious blow to the president himself because he is extremely keen on his security, and his security is compromised,” he told AP. “That’s something that he would be very unhappy about — particularly if the compromise is to do with communications, upon which a great deal relies.” [caption id=“attachment_12415522” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] This photo provided by the Dossier Center shows the Russian Federal Protective Service identification card of Gleb Karakulov, in October 2022 in Turkey. AP[/caption] The news agency said it could not speak directly to Karakulov because he and his family have gone into hiding for safety concerns. However, AP said that it independently confirmed Karakulov’s identity with three sources in the United State and Europe, while also corroborating his personal details. The Dossier Center interviewed Karakulov multiple times and shared video and transcripts of more than six hours of those interviews with AP, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation DR, Swedish Television SVT, and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK. The Dossier Center confirmed the authenticity of Karakulov’s passport and FSO work identity card, and cross-checked details of his biography against Russian government records, leaked personal data and social media postings. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News, Trending News,  Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.