A Russian officer who worked closely with President Vladimir Putin as a captain in the Federal Security Service has escaped and is now revealing Kremlin secrets, The Moscow Times and Newsweek have reported. Putin is “pathologically afraid for his life”, never uses a mobile phone, lives in an “information vacuum” and gathers news from his immediate environment and state television, the Russian defector claims.

Gleb Karakulov was involved in encrypting Putin’s communications before fleeing Russia to Istanbul last year because of his objections to the war in Ukraine.

Karakulov said he managed to escape with his family to Turkey, accompanying Putin during his visit to Kazakhstan for a summit in mid-October 2022.

In the Federal Security Service (FSO) since 2009, he worked as an engineer and rose to the rank of captain.

Karakulov worked in the FSO’s presidential communications unit and accompanied Putin on more than 180 trips over the past 13 years. The unit ensured that Putin and the Russian prime minister benefited from encrypted communication 24/7.

Putin is paranoid

A former Russian officer said in an interview with the Dossier Center that Vladimir Putin is paranoid and afraid of contracting COVID-19, spends a lot of time in “bunkers” and generally does not use such technologies as a mobile phone or the Internet.

“For the past two years, he has been living in an information cocoon,” Karakulov told the Dossier Center, “he is pathologically afraid for his life.”

Three years after the outbreak of the pandemic, the Russian president forces every employee to undergo a two-week quarantine before being in the same room with him.

At the same time, the head of the Kremlin demands that Russian state television be available during his trips abroad.

“He isolated himself from the world with all kinds of barriers: quarantine, information vacuum. His vision of reality is distorted,” said the Russian defector.

What is the state of Putin’s health?

It also claims that Putin often travels by private train and uses an in-cabin phone on trips to other countries to ensure his communications are not monitored.

At the same time, Karakulov refuted the assumption that the 70-year-old Russian leader is suffering from an unknown disease: “He is healthier than many other people of his age.”

Karakulov called Putin a “war criminal” and called on former associates in the Kremlin to stop following orders to protest the war in Ukraine.

Putin’s secrets

A former Russian officer confirmed some of the information made public in previous journalistic investigations about Putin’s personal life and fortune.

Karakulov said Putin’s family, which the Russian president has never publicly announced, was an “open secret” discussed among fellow FSO officers. He recalled that colleagues had mentioned Putin staying at his residences with his daughters or, according to rumors, partners.

Karakulov said he and a colleague confirmed the existence of Putin’s lavish Black Sea palace after it was revealed in an investigation by a team of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Karakulov also confirmed the information that Putin has the same offices in several residences. He shared an anecdote in which he saw Putin in his office in Sochi, while a television report said he was holding a meeting at his residence outside Moscow, hundreds of kilometers to the north.

“It would be an even greater crime if I stayed.”

Karakulov is the highest-ranking employee of the Russian special services known for desertion in the country’s modern history, the Dossier Center notes.

Knowing that his escape violated Russian law, Karakulov stated, “It would have been an even greater crime if I had stayed at my job.”

The Dossier Center said it recorded an interview with Karakulov sometime in late 2022 and released it on Tuesday after it was assured he and his family had left Turkey and were in a safe place.

Karakulov said his reservations about Russia’s leadership first arose after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his work arranging expensive trips for Putin and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishushin.

These reserves peaked on the day Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and then after Putin announced the mobilization of reservists on September 21.

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