An elite personal security officer of the Russian president who defected last October labeled him a “war criminal” for ordering the February 2022 invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the Associated Press reported today.
“Our president has become a war criminal, it is time to end this war and end the silence,” said Russian engineer Gleb Karakulov, quoted by the US news agency Associated Press (AP), unable to speak directly to him, but watched more than six hours of videos and transcripts of several interviews given to him by the research group The Dossier Center, based in London and funded by Russian adversary Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The AP pointed out that he is no ordinary defector, stressing instead that he is one of the few members of Putin’s elite secret service for personal security with a military rank and knowledge of the details of the chief’s personal life. and possibly confidential information.
Karakulov, who was responsible for the security of the Kremlin’s communications and who boarded a flight from Kazakhstan to Turkey with his wife and daughter on October 14 last year and then went underground, was one of the few Russian officers to flee and accepted it publicly.
In the Dossier Center interviews, which were also shared with Danish Radiotelevision DR, Swedish television station SVT and Norwegian Radiotelevision NRK, the Russian engineer explained that his moral opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his fear of dying there (because several of his colleagues were sent to the front and died) got him to speak out despite the risks to himself and his family, and said he hoped to inspire other Russians to speak out as well.
Karakulov’s description broadly echoes others that portray the Russian president as a once charismatic but increasingly isolated leader who does not use a cell phone or the Internet and insists on accessing Russian public television wherever he travels.
While not a close confidant of Putin, the Russian defector, a member of a unit of the Federal Protective Service’s Presidential Communications Department (FSO), has been in his service for years and has been watching him closely since 2009 until after mid-2022 .
So he was also able to provide new details about how Putin’s paranoia seems to have deepened since his decision to invade Ukraine last February.
According to Karakulov, Putin now prefers to avoid planes and travels in a special armored train, and in October he ordered the construction of a “bunker” at the Russian embassy in Kazakhstan, equipped with a secure communication line — this was the engineer’s first request received.
“I think he’s just scared,” he noted, while also reporting that sometimes he’s officially reported to be in one place when in fact he’s in another.
For example, when Putin was in Sochi – the Black Sea resort where the 2014 Winter Olympics were held – security officials deliberately faked his departure, ordered a plane to be sent to take him away, and set up a presidential caravan, when in fact he would stay, Karakulov reported.
“My colleagues talked about it laughingly,” he noted, adding: “I think it’s an attempt, firstly, to confuse the intelligence services and secondly, to prevent assassination attempts.”
But, contrary to widespread speculation, the Russian engineer, who has made more than 180 trips with Putin, claims that he is in better physical shape than most people his age (70 years), canceled during those 13 years, little travel due to illness and annual routine medical examinations.
In addition to information about Russia’s head of state, this defector’s testimony also offers an intimate look at one man’s decision to defect: not to mention his own mother, who said she remains a staunch supporter of Putin after decades of brainwashing by Russian public television.
This raises important questions about how deep Russian public acceptance of the war in Ukraine is and how Putin’s opponents in the West and elsewhere might be encouraging some quiet opposition in the country.
Gleb Karakulov has been on the wanted list of the Russian Interior Ministry’s public database of suspected criminals since the ministry launched a criminal investigation against him on Oct. 26 for desertion during a period of military mobilization, according to documents obtained by the Dossier Center.
The Kremlin, contacted by the AP, did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.
Source: DN
