Gleb Karakulov was an officer in President Vladimir Putin’s uncommunicative elite particular security service.
and son. He switched off his phone to shut out the top of critical, enraged dispatches, said farewell to his life in Russia and tried to calm his fast- beating heart.
But this was no ordinary Russian deserter. Karakulov was an officer in President Vladimir Putin’s uncommunicative elite particular security service — one of the many Russians to flee and go public who have rank, as well as knowledge of intimate details of Putin’s life and potentially classified information.
Karakulov, who was responsible for secure dispatches, said moral opposition to Russia’s irruption of Ukraine and his fear of dying there drove him to speak out, despite the pitfalls to himself and his family. He said he hoped to inspire other Russians to speak out also.
“ Our chairman has come a war miscreant, ” he said. “ It’s time to end this war and stop being silent. ”
Karakulov’s account generally conforms with others that paint the Russian chairman as a formerly attractive but decreasingly isolated leader, who does n’t use a cellphone or the internet and insists on access to Russian state TV wherever he goes. He also offered new details about how Putin’s paranoia appears to have strengthened since his decision to foray Ukraine in February 2022. Putin now prefers to avoid aeroplanes
and trip on a special armored train, he said, and he ordered a cellarage at the Russian Embassy in Kazakhstan accoutred
with a secure dispatches line in October — the first time Karakulov had ever contended such a request.
Along with information on Putin, Karakulov’s evidence offers an intimate view of one man’s decision to emigrate — without telling his own mama , who he said remains a strong Putin supporter. It raises critical questions about how deep the Russian public’s acceptance of the war runs, and how Putin’s opponents in the West and beyond might work any silent opposition.
