During the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the information about the health of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been increasing over the days. And even more so after the former head of British intelligence even advanced who could succeed him in a position in which he has been in command since 2000.
Sir Richard Dearlove, who served as head of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 to 2004, said this week that the number one candidate to replace Putin will be Nikolai Patrushev. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to be Patrushev,” he said on an episode of the One Decision podcast.
For this to happen, the current Russian president would have to be forced to leave office due to illness. Moreover, Dearlove even ventured in May by saying that Putin will leave his post in 2023 and will be forced to enter a medical center for a prolonged illness.
There are many media that have warned about Putin’s illness in recent times. For example, the US weekly Newsweek, citing US intelligence sources, stated that in April he had been treated for advanced cancer. Paris Match assured that Putin was escorted to the bathroom by a team in charge of collecting his feces to avoid any sample that could give information about his state of health. Russian website Proekt noted that Putin’s trips to Sochi coincided with the arrival of a large group of doctors, including a thyroid cancer specialist.
On the other hand, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, said that Putin “is too healthy”, thus denying any rumor about a possible illness.
Who is Nikolai Patrushev
Nikolai Patrushev, 71, is considered the closest political official to the Russian president. He is currently the director of the Russian National Security Council. He shares the same vision as Putin and is referred to by many as the president’s great ‘hawk’.
Both coincided during the government of Boris Yeltsin, with Putin being director of the FSB and Patrushev head of different sections and later number two in the service. When Putin became president, Patrushev replaced him as head of the FSB, the organization that succeeded the KGB, from 1999 to 2008.
“As an academic who studies Putin and his inner circle, it is clear to me that Patrushev’s close relationship with Putin, which began more than 50 years ago, gives him enormous influence over the president. Both deplore the end of the USSR, and both share a deep distrust of the West fueled by nonsensical conspiracy theories,” says Susanne Sternthal, a specialist in Post-Soviet Government and Politics at the University of Texas.
Featured Phrases
In 2018, Patrushev accuses the United States of having supported Hitler on his way to power: “In the 1930s, the West not only did not deny, but actively contributed to the formation and growth of the power of fascism in Germany. Everything the world knows, for example, the case of IBM. It was on their calculating machines that the Nazis kept records and planned the processes of extermination of people in the concentration camps”.
Patrushev also dedicated a few words to the European Union, which he accused of submitting to US policies in favor of NATO’s strategic objectives. “Washington and Brussels do not hide the fact that their sanctions are aimed at the material and spiritual impoverishment of Russians. Destroying our education by imposing the so-called progressive models of education on us is as strategic a task for Westerners as, for example, bringing NATO to our borders”.
Of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Patrushev predicted that “the result of the policy of the West and the kyiv regime under its control can only be the disintegration of Ukraine into several states.” He also referred to the United States again, noting that “the lives of Ukrainians are of concern to the United States, which has repeatedly demonstrated its aggressive and anti-human nature.”
Facebook Comments
Disqus