Russian secret services have started to investigate the reported plan to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin coming from their own ranks.
The investigation comes in response to Mikhail Yurchenko, 37, a construction industry entrepreneur who informed Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, a channel closely connected to Putin’s security agencies, that an “agent” had boasted about his “task” to “remove” the dictator.
The “agent” was overheard in a karaoke bar in Chekov called Honey, 40 miles south of Moscow – known for its association with Russian security operatives.
Yurchenko alleged the man showed him his service ID card while in “a long heart-to-heart conversation about the war and future life in Russia.”
Yurchenko says that he “did not argue and changed the topic” but was left “haunted” by the alleged threat. Though he was unable to remember the man’s name, he reported the incident to the police.
Putin, who turns 71 on Saturday, is known for his extremely strict security regimes to protect himself and lives in constant fear of assassination.
Among the many precautions put in place to ease the dictator’s paranoia, reports suggest that he regularly employs body doubles at various events across Russia.
Leaked U.S. intelligence reports suggest that Putin has been suffering from cancer for years.
In an attempt to justify his war with Ukraine and attack the West, Putin has made more appearances in the last few weeks than he has in years.
Elections are due in March 2024, and Putin is currently poised to announce his intention to seek a new six-year term in the Kremlin.
At the International Financial Security Olympiad in Sochi, he told student participants, “I want to defend our friends. We have a lot of friends in Europe…People who believe that traditional values, including the family, have died out.”
Putin’s words were met with major backlash – he was branded by one Telegram channel as “a divorced man living with his mistress, calling his [adult] daughters ‘one woman’ and ‘second woman’. [He] never showed himself with his children and grandchildren. Again he has said that in the West they are against traditional family values.”
A month earlier, a drone packed with explosives crashed near an industrial park outside of Moscow, where Putin was rumored to visit later that day.
