Vladimir Putin is reportedly unraveling behind the scenes
U.S. intel officials have learned that Vladimir Putin is “frustrated and directing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle,” per NBC News. We’re watching Putin unravel in real time. Now is the time to ratchet things up. Let’s put even more financial pressure on the Russian oligarchs to finish him off.
What really stands out is that the U.S. has this information. Either we have a mole very high in Putin’s regime, or we’ve bugged the most “secure” rooms in the Kremlin, or Putin’s advisers have decided it’s time for him to go and are leaking this stuff to us accordingly, or some similar scenario.
There’s no way to know for sure, but at least one of the above type of scenarios must be true. More to the point, there’s no way for Putin to know which of the above scenarios are true, meaning he’ll have no idea what to do about it. Does he start tearing out the Kremlin walls? Taking out his advisers? He’ll certainly be watching his every word and second guessing himself, not knowing who or what is giving away his secrets. And this is a guy who is already inexplicably meeting with friends and foes at the far end of a twenty foot table, so it’s not like he needs much to push him into deeper paranoia.
As Putin unravels, the Russian oligarchs will end up having more than just a financial motivation for ousting him. At some point they’ve got to worry about an increasingly unstable Putin getting them killed.
