Putin's inner circle's shrinking - and the stakes are rising, writes Russian President's biographer Professor MARK GALEOTTI
Few in the Kremlin’s inner circle get a face-to-face audience with president Vladimir Putin these days.
The Russian dictator is paranoid about contracting Covid and conducts most meetings over videolink.
That has the added bonus of making it easier to end conversations that displease him.
Last month the governor of the country’s central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, attempted to resign over Zoom in protest at the invasion of Ukraine.
She didn’t mince her words. The disastrous military invasion was ‘flushing the economy into the sewers’, she told him.
Putin refused to accept her resignation. She was needed to steady the markets, he said. Then he disconnected the call.
He will not tolerate dissent or any opinion that contradicts his own. But around him in Moscow’s halls of power, there is increasing disquiet.
It has been reported that senior Kremlin insiders fear Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a ‘catastrophic’ mistake which could ‘doom’ Russia to years of isolation. Chillingly, they warn he might well resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Such criticism is coming from both flanks, from the nationalists and the more socially liberal technocrats – from the hawks and doves, uniforms and suits.
The nationalists back Putin’s belief that Ukraine should be forced back into Russia’s sphere of influence, severing it from the West. But they are horrified at how badly the war has gone.
The liberals were always sceptical about the overthrow of a foreign government and are in despair at the damage being done to Russia – both its economy and its international standing.
FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10744763/Putins-inner-circles-shrinking-stakes-rising-writes-biographer-MARK-GALEOTTI.html
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