According to Newsweek, Business Insider, Fortune, and other media sources, there is a coup under way in the Kremlin to remove Putin from power.
It will eventually lead to the change of leadership of the Russian Federation. This process has already been launched and they are moving into that way," Ukrainian Major Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told the UK's Sky News in an exclusive interview.
An interviewer asked if a coup is underway, to which Budanov replied, "Yes. They are moving in this way and it is impossible to stop it."
Putin has cancer and other ailments, he said, dismissing the suggestion that he was spreading propaganda.
A coup to remove him, though not without risks, is better, in my view, than Putin’s removal by death from cancer. In the latter event, Putin would undoubtedly have made arrangements for some other hard-line, Soviet-style crony to succeed him. And there’d be less chance that such a replacement would pull the plug on the Ukraine invasion.
This story does not have all the confirmation one would like yet. More will appear soon, I hope and pray.
After first reading that Putin had cancer and was purportedly scheduled to have surgery this spring, no doubt many people have thought, wished, and hoped that the dictator would come out of anesthesia and find himself handcuffed to the bed. Some Kremlin officials could politely inform him that he no longer had a role in the government and that he would be spending his retirement in a nursing facility with plenty of security to ensure his safety.
It wouldn’t have to go the way the 1953 coup against USSR security chief Beria did. Malenkov, Khrushchev et al arrested and deposed Lavrentiy Beria and had him shot right after his trial.