During the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, information about the health of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been increasing day by day. Even more so after the former head of British intelligence even stepped in to replace him in the position he has led since 2000.

Sir Richard Dearlove, who served as head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 to 2004, said this week that the number one candidate to replace Putin was Nikolai Patrushev. “I’m almost certain it was Patrushev,” he said in an episode of the podcast. One Decision.

For this to happen, the current president of Russia had to be forced to leave office due to illness. What’s more, Dearlove even ventured in May by saying that Putin would leave his post in 2023 and would be forced into a medical center due to a protracted illness.

There has been a lot of media warning about Putin’s illness lately. For example, American weekly NewsweekCiting US intelligence sources, he stated that in April he had been treated for advanced cancer. paris match He assured that Putin was escorted to the bathroom by a team tasked with collecting his feces to avoid samples that could provide information about the state of his health. Russian site Project He noted that Putin’s trip to Sochi coincided with the arrival of a large group of doctors, including thyroid cancer specialists.

On the other hand, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, said that Putin was “too healthy”, thus denying rumors of 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 many call him a great presidential ‘eagle’.

The two coincided during the Boris Yeltsin Administration, with Putin being the director of the FSB and Patrushev the head of different sections and then number two in the service. When Putin became president, Patrushev succeeded him as head of the FSB, the organization that replaced 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, gave him great influence over the president. Both deplore the end of the Soviet Union, and both deplore the end of the Soviet Union. deep distrust of the West fueled by absurd conspiracy theories,” said Susanne Sternthal, a specialist in Post-Soviet Governance and Politics at the University of Texas.

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In 2018, Patrushev accused 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 in the world knows, for example, the case IBM. It was on their calculator that the Nazis kept records and plotted the process of exterminating people in concentration camps.”

Patrushev also dedicated a few words to the European Union, which he accuses of bowing to US policies that support NATO’s strategic goals. “Washington and Brussels do not hide the fact that their sanctions are aimed at the material and spiritual impoverishment of Russia. Destroying our education by imposing the so-called progressive education model on us is a strategic task for Westerners as, for example, bringing NATO to our borders.”

Regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Patrushev predicted that “the result of the policies 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, saying he did not believe “Ukrainian life has come to the attention of the United States, which has repeatedly displayed its aggressive and anti-human nature.”

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