The Dossier Center published an interview with the captain of the Federal Security Service (FSO), who worked as an engineer in the presidential communications department and fled abroad in October 2022. It is noted that Gleb Karakulov, 35, is the highest-ranking Russian intelligence officer who fled the country after the start of a full-scale war in Ukraine and condemned the invasion.
In October, Karakulov, whose job was to provide Vladimir Putin with secret communications, accompanied him on a trip to Astana. On the last day of the trip, the officer flew to Istanbul with his wife and daughter, who secretly came to him in the capital of Kazakhstan. In Russia, a criminal case was opened against Karakulov for desertion, and they came to his relatives with searches.
In an interview that the officer gave to Dossier at the end of last year, he said that after the start of the war he could no longer work for the authorities.
“In February of this year, a criminal war began, and I could not make a deal with my conscience. I simply could not be in the service of this president. I consider this man a war criminal. Although I did not participate specifically in hostilities, I do not consider it possible for me to fulfill his criminal orders or simply be in his service.
In an interview, Karakulov confirmed that Putin does not use the Internet and mobile phones, and receives information mainly from the reports of the special services, and also watches Russian TV channels.
“All the information he receives is only from people who are directly close. He lives in a kind of information vacuum. <…> Our president is cut off from the world. He has been living in an information cocoon for the past couple of years, spending most of his time in his residences, which the media very eloquently refer to as bunkers. He is pathologically afraid for his life. He surrounded himself with an impenetrable barrier of quarantines and lack of information. His values are his life and the life of his family and friends. The life of your relatives and friends is of no interest to him.”
Karakulov confirmed that everyone who comes into contact with Putin is in quarantine.
“We are seriously quarantined for two weeks before any event, even if it lasts 15 or 20 minutes. A pool of employees is being created who have undergone this cleaning – they have served a two-week quarantine. They are considered clean and can work directly in the same room as Putin. <…> Everyone is a little at a loss as to why this is still going on. Because at least everyone was forced to be vaccinated. Everyone undergoes medical examinations, monitors their health, and undergoes PCR testing. I know that all adjutants of the president take PCR tests almost several times a day.”
Karakulov also said that Putin's special train looks like an ordinary Russian Railways train from the outside, but is used for the sake of secrecy, since train movements are more difficult to track than aircraft movements.