Former NATO Colonel Says Putin Is at Risk of Being Poisoned by Gangster Friends, Here’s Why

LONDON – A former NATO colonel said the war in Ukraine make president Russia Vladimir Putin at risk of being poisoned by his “gangster friends”.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert and former British Army colonel, said Ukraine’s counter-invasion of Russia’s Kursk region this month would make Putin paranoid about his closest allies, and that he was now in a difficult position.

De Bretton-Gordon said that while he believed Putin had a “firm grip”, the fact that so many people were talking and understood what was happening meant he had to get to the bottom of this very quickly.

“Otherwise, there will be a lot of his gangster friends who will happily slip something into his tea and take over,” he said in an interview with The Sun, which was reported Tuesday (20/8/2024).

“Putin is in a difficult position and the temperature is getting hotter,” he said.

Kyiv launched a cross-border counterattack on August 6 at Kursk, which borders Ukraine’s Sumy region, which appeared to catch Moscow by surprise.

Ukrainian forces have so far taken control of 1,150 square kilometers of Russian territory and 82 settlements in Kursk, Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky said on August 15.

The scale of the offensive is significant, and Ukraine has now reportedly captured more territory in the Kursk region in a few days than Russia has captured in Ukraine since the start of the year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces show no signs of slowing down.