"Our President has become a war criminal" -- Russian Defector

A protection officer who worked directly for Vladimir Putin has defected from Russia, labelling the Kremlin despot a ‘war criminal’ for his invasion of Ukraine. Gleb Karakulov, 35, is a captain in the Federal Guard Service, known as the FGS or FSO, who escaped Russia to the safety via Istanbul. Now, he has revealed in an interview that Putin is so paranoid about his personal security, assassination attempts and health and that he opts to stay ‘in his bunker’ rather than make regular trips across the country like he used to. Karakulov added that the Russian despot is ‘mortally afraid’ of Covid and is isolating for the fourth year, and that he never uses a mobile phone out of fear of being bugged by the West – instead taking a special communications box with him [Daily Mail].

Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine was a breaking point, he said. He told his wife he wanted out. He didn’t want their young daughter brainwashed in pre-school, where children were doing patriotic salutes and being told about bombs. With Russia’s September mobilization drive, Karakulov realized that if he quit his job, he was likely to be drafted into a war he didn’t want to fight. He learned that some of his colleagues had been dispatched to Ukraine and killed. He was outraged that no one in Russia acknowledged those deaths [Associated Press].