Vladimir Putin’s grip on power fading amid an ‘increasing disarray’ in the Kremlin, claims ex-spy

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Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on power due to his ailing health and is leaving the Kremlin in ‘increasing disarray and chaos’ as the war in Ukraine marches on, a former British spy has claimed. 

Christopher Steele, who once operated in Russia as an MI6 agent, said Putin, 69, is having to take regular breaks to receive medical treatments and that there was effectively ‘no clear political leadership’ in Moscow. 

The former spook, who headed up the MI6 desk in Russia for three years, also said the warring president was ‘constantly accompanied’ by a team of doctors. 

Rumours have been circling for years that Putin is suffering from health problems, and they have intensified since he launched his brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Critics and Kremlin sources have indicated he may be suffering from cancer or Parkinson’s, supported in recent weeks by footage showing the leader shaking uncontrollably and gripping a table for support.

Most recently, on May 14, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Major General Kyrylo Budanov claimed Putin was ‘very sick’, before suggesting that plans for a coup were already underway.  

Mr Steele told LBC this week: ‘Our understanding is that there’s increasing disarray in the Kremlin and chaos.

‘There’s no clear political leadership coming from Putin, who is increasingly ill, and in military terms, the structures of command and so on are not functioning as they should.’ 

Understandably, Mr Steele was unable to reveal his source but said he was ‘fairly confident’ of their claims. 

‘What we do know is that he’s constantly accompanied around the place by a team of doctors,’ said Mr Steele. 

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s top spokesperson, has repeatedly denied that there are any issues with the dictator’s health.

But Mr Steele said many government meetings at the Kremlin are having to be broken up into sections to allow Putin to leave for medical treatments. 

‘It’s certainly having a very serious impact on the governance of Russia at the moment,’ he said.

But despite his decline, there is little to no chance he will withdraw from Ukraine given the ‘political corner he’s painted himself into’, Mr Steele said. 

He added: ‘It’s probably driving his wish to solidify his legacy as he sees it.’

Mr Steele said that Putin was ‘probably’ suffering from Parkinson’s but that one cannot know ‘the exact details of what his ailment is.’  

Mr Steele was a Russian expert for the MI6 for 22 years. 

He hit headlines in 2016 when his ‘dirty dossier’ on the newly elected US President Donald Trump was leaked. 

In the document he alleged Trump was in Putin’s pocket and claimed he threw an orgy with prostitutes on a Moscow trip. 

Christo Grozev, a Russia expert, said this week that he believes GRU and FSB elites are the most likely to try and topple Putin, because they know the truth of what is happening on the ground.

And those elites are already looking for ways to move their money and families out of the country in anticipation of Putin falling, Grozev claimed.

Speaking to Radio Liberty about what may spark the coup, Grozev said the moment could come if or when Putin orders his generals to carry out a nuclear strike.

‘If Putin decides to give an order to use nuclear weapons, he must be sure that everyone along the chain will carry out this order,’ he said.

‘If one does not comply, then this will be a signal of insubordination. And perhaps even the physical death of Putin.

‘Until he is sure that everyone will comply, he will not give this order.’

Grozev believes similar fears are preventing Putin from giving the order for a general mobilisation of the Russian armed forces and population.

Such an order would allow him to massively boost troop numbers in Ukraine, perhaps shifting the tide of the war in his favour.

But the order would also cause a ‘social explosion’ among ordinary Russians, Grozev says, because it would mean admitting the ‘special military operation’ – which until now Putin has presented as a resounding success – has failed. 

It comes as Putin has launched a major new offensive in the east of Ukraine as he hopes to build on his ‘victory’ in the strategic port city of Mariupol, while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky urges for a diplomatic end to the invasion. 

The last remaining Ukrainian-held territories in the Donbas region have become central to Putin’s war plans as he looks to take full control of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. 

It means Russian and Ukrainian forces are set for a re-match of one of the biggest battles of the conflict so far, as Putin’s troops prepare another attempt to cross the Siverskiy Donets river, which connects the crucial cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, both in Luhansk. 

They are part of a Ukrainian-held pocket that Russia has been trying to overrun since mid-April after failing to capture the capital of Kyiv. 

Meanwhile Ukrainian president Zelensky said today that the war can only be resolved through ‘diplomacy’, amid a deadlock in negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

‘The end will be through diplomacy,’ the comedian turned war time leader said, speaking to a Ukrainian television channel. 

He added that the war ‘will be bloody, there will be fighting, but it will only definitively end through diplomacy’.

Recent weeks have seen Russia forced out from the outskirts of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in what was their fastest retreat since being pushed out of the north and Kyiv region at the end of March.

However they have re-taken some of their lost ground in Kharkiv and still control a large swathe of the south and east, while the end of the fighting in Mariupol means that that territory is now largely unbroken.

Footage shared on Telegram today appears to show the moment a Russian Iskander-M strikes a Ukrainian position near Petrovskoye, in Kharkiv, while in village of Vilkhivka, also in Kharkiv, and in nearby Bakhmut, images from Friday show levelled houses and traumatised residents as they returned to take stock of the damage.