Putin Fearing Targeted Strike, Assassination, Or Coup

Russia’s strongman leader, Vladimir Putin, is under siege, increasingly paranoid about his personal safety, limiting his public exposure, and significantly bolstering his personal protection against the rising risk of targeted military strikes, assassination, and coup attempts.

Among the factors raising his concern are Ukraine’s long-range strike capability and successful targeted assassinations of senior Russian military leaders, as well as the highly successful U.S. operations targeting Venezuela and Iran’s leadership. There is also the growing popular discontent with Putin inside Russia, and inside the Kremlin.

These assessments are allegedly based on leaked intelligence from an unspecified European Union intelligence service provided to credible news agencies, CNN, Financial Times, and iStories, an independent Russian outlet.

As Newsmax reported:

In response, Putin has curtailed travel and in-person meetings, while security screenings for visitors have been further tightened.

… [Putin] and his family have stopped visiting residences in the Moscow region and Valdai in northwestern Russia, instead spending extended periods in [recently upgraded] fortified bunkers, including in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia [a coastal region bordering the Black Sea hours away from Moscow]. 

inews.co.uk noted that: “Russia’s federal protection service, the FSO, has sharply reduced Putin’s public appearances and taken control of public messaging about his activities, the [intelligence] report — published on [independent] Russian investigative site Important Stories  — claims.”

The news outlet added:

Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin adviser now living abroad, told The i Paper the Russian President had become increasingly reclusive, with public appearances increasingly rare. He believes this is a result of growing Ukrainian threats and a decline in his domestic standing.

The main reason for Putin’s security fears is “increasing Ukrainian efficiency in terms of operations which they conduct in Russia – both targeted killings and attacks against Russian oil,” he said.

As Newsmax noted: “‘The shock of Ukraine’s drone Operation Spiderweb is still there,’ a person familiar with Putin said, referring to attacks last year [from inside Russia] on Russian airfields beyond the Arctic Circle.” There is also Ukraine’s increasing ability to launch long-range precision strikes deep into Russian territory.

inews continued:

“Number two is growing displeasure with what’s going on in the country among Russian elites and the Russian population,” he added, pointing to a decline in Putin’s approval rating even with the state pollster, which found this had reached a wartime low of 65.6 per cent last month, down from around 80 per cent in 2022.

“He feels the amount of enemies inside the country is growing, including among the elites, so Ukrainians might easily find somebody who would want to target him inside the country,” said Gallyamov, adding that that the assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by Israel and the US may have heightened Putin’s sense of insecurity.

Putin’s fears were heightened by the American military capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, and the U.S. and Israeli decapitation strikes of Iran’s leadership in February, both reinforcing fears within the Kremlin about leadership vulnerability.

But Putin is also increasingly fearing an internal coup attempt. As CNN reported:

The [EU intelligence] report says that, since the beginning of March 2026, the “Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself have been concerned about potential leaks of sensitive information, as well as the risk of a plot or coup attempt targeting the Russian president. He is particularly wary of the use of drones for a possible assassination attempt by members of the Russian political elite.”

But the most striking conclusion concerns erstwhile Putin confidante, Sergei Shoigu.

The sidelined former defense minister, currently serving as secretary of the Security Council, “is associated with the risk of a coup, as he retains significant influence within the military high command”, the report says.

There is more. And all of this has produced a series of expanded security measures that I will review in a follow-up piece.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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