Vladimir Putin’s former speechwriter believes Ukraine’s incursion into Russia has ruined “everything” for the president, as the public become disillusioned with the war.
Exiled Abbas Gallyamov has been on Putin’s wanted list as a “foreign agent” since March 2023.
He served as speechwriter and adviser to the president but quit in 2010.
He left the country in 2018 to live in Israel when he started to fear the direction Russia was going in and has not been back for three years.
Speaking to Times Radio this week, Gallyamov suggested Ukraine’s shock incursion of Russia is unravelling Putin’s public image, now Kyiv has taken 1,000 sq km of land.
Russia has refused to move troops from the Ukrainian region of Donbas – which the Kremlin is determined to annex – to protect the Russian area of Kursk from Ukraine.
“It seems like he is ready to sacrifice Russian territory for Ukrainian territory,” he said, adding that this is behaviour “of a real fanatic, like not a normal person”.
Gallyamov claimed, “Putin is going deeper and deeper into the abyss” of prioritising his own invasion rather than protecting the Russian population.
The former Putin aide also noted that Russian land seized by Ukraine must have been left unprotected in the first place.
He said this raises further questions about whether the Kremlin really does have the supplies to prolong the war for years to come, as figures like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage have suggested.
Gallyamov said both the general public and the elites feel very disappointed and “betrayed” by Putin’s decisions.
He pointed out that the Kremlin has also downplayed the impact of Ukraine’s incursion, saying the villages have a small population, and has “no strategic importance”.
“This definitely deeply hurts Russian people, they feel, ‘they don’t care for us’. He cannot change it, this is his problem, he is so concentrated on the Donbas,” Gallyamov said.
Putin was re-elected in Russia’s presidential election in March, although the voting system was widely written off as a sham for coercing Russians (and those in occupied Ukraine) into backing the incumbent leader.
The former Putin aide even claimed Russians believe Putin should not have started the war if he cannot wage it properly – and so he should stop it.
He said the incursion was “a tremendous blow to Putin’s legitimacy, Putin’s standing” and “a moment of vulnerability”.
He said for the last two and a half years, Putin has been telling Russians everything has been “going well” in the war and going “according to plan” – but now Ukraine has invaded them.
Gallyamov said: “He is losing confidence of the audience, he is losing trust, people no longer trust him, so now it’s the moment of greater consideration of this war.
“When people start being doubtful about [whether] you’re telling the truth about how the war is getting on, they start being doubtful about the reasons of the war, the whole idea of the war, that story about Ukrainian Nazis.”
“Now is the moment people start understanding this is not a just war,” he said. “This incursion really ruins everything.”
Gallyamov said the Ukrainian offensive was a “big step towards negotiations”.
He explained: “Putin is not the kind of person who will negotiate with you if he feels he can win or conquer you, he is not that kind of man.
“The only way of convincing him to hold negotiations is defeating him on the battlefield.”