Ex-intelligence chief: Putin 'will not be alive in 2023'

Created: 05/23/2022, 15:08

By: Nail Akkoyun

The rumors about Vladimir Putin's poor health have not stopped.

According to a former intelligence chief, the president is even facing death.

MOSCOW – According to former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, Russian President Vladimir Putin could be out of power by next year.

According to the former British secret service agent, this has nothing to do with the Ukraine war, but with the state of health of the 69-year-old head of state.

"I'm really leaning out the window now.

I don't think he'll be alive in 2023," Dearlove said on the One Decision podcast.

Soon, Putin will be "probably committed to a sanitarium from which he will not emerge as the leader of Russia," speculated Dearlove, who was Britain's intelligence chief from 1999 to 2004.

According to a former intelligence chief, Vladimir Putin may soon be dead.

(Archive photo) © Sergey Guneev/Imago Images

If Vladimir Putin dies, will Nikolai Patrushev become Russia's next president?

According to Dearlove, the new Russian president after Vladimir Putin could already be known: Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council.

"If my thesis were to prove true and Putin disappeared into a sanatorium, he would be the likely replacement," Dearlove said.

“And of course, in this scenario, the substitute will in all likelihood be permanent.

I mean, you know that there is no succession in the Russian leadership.

There is also no succession planning.”

The former intelligence chief also predicted that Russia could “break apart” in the next 12 to 18 months due to Western-imposed sanctions.

Russia: Medical team accompanies Vladimir Putin "constantly"

Christopher Steele, another former British MI6 employee, commented on Putin's state of health last week.

According to him, the Russian president missed several wartime meetings due to medical treatment.

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"Security Council meetings that are supposed to last a full hour are actually divided into several sections," Steele, who wrote a dossier on Donald Trump and alleged Moscow interference in the 2016 US election, told radio station LBC.

Putin is "constantly" accompanied by a medical team.

Various reports have been circulating in the media for months - there was talk of leukemia, thyroid cancer and Parkinson's disease.

In addition, a Russian oligarch is said to have revealed that the head of state was "very badly ill with blood cancer".

In a secretly recorded audio recording, the unknown magnate is said to have said that Putin was "very ill".

And further: "We all hope that Putin will die of cancer." It is unclear who the oligarch is - in order to protect him from the Russian state, his name has so far remained unpublished.

(nak)