Vladimir Putin is losing his grip and faces his regime collapsing as "predators circle" in the Kremlin, claims a KGB expert.
Yevgenia Albats, exiled editor of The New Times magazine, said competing power groups are at each others' throats and the weakened Russian president can no longer control them.
Putin is facing a “lunch of the predators” and a “war of all against all” in his circle.
More than two decades ago Albats wrote ‘The State within a State’ about how the Soviet-era KGB secret service had taken control of the new Russia.
Now she sees Putin, a former KGB spy, losing his ability to control the powerbrokers amid a crisis caused by his war in Ukraine.
“The fight has begun inside the very top echelons of Russian power,” she told independent TV Rain.
“We are witnessing the lunch of the predators.
“What’s happening now is a key manifestation of breakdown within the power [structures].
“And of the fact that Putin can no longer act as mediator between various interest groups - that the war of all against all has begun….”
Albats, who was forced to flee Russia in September after being declared a 'foreign agent' said: “And I want to hope this will crash this inhumane regime, [which is] killing people in Ukraine and its own mobilised people in Russia.
“[What we now see] is war at the very top of the power echelon.
“And Putin can no longer serve as a mediator, which is his key function.
“Therefore, he [Putin] is next.”
She pointed to recent incidents suggesting Putin’s hold on power is diminishing.
These included a campaign to oust his defence minister Sergei Shoigu and leading generals by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, 46, and Putin’s “out of control” fixer Yevgeny Prigozhin, 61.
She highlighted recent sudden legal moves for “extortion” against TV journalist and former opposition presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, known as Putin’s “goddaughter”
Sobchak was forced to flee to the West last week or face criminal charges leading to a possible 15 year jail term.
Later it was claimed there were no changes against her and one of her business associates and there have been suggestions she may now return from exile in Lithuania.
Many assume that previously Putin would have protected Sobchak, 40, whose father Anatoly, ex-mayor of St Petersburg, was his mentor and former law professor.
The Moscow home of journalist, uber-loyalist Andrey Karaulov in Dubai was searched, and another Kremlin-supporting editor Modest Kolerov was suddenly fired from his Regnum news agency.
The action appears to show scores being settled without reference to Putin.
A common thread in the Sobchak and Karaulov cases were claims of wrong-doing made of Putin crony Sergey Chemezov, CEO of Rostec Corporation.
Yet Chemezov, who spied for the KGB alongside Putin in East Germany and is seen as having upset the Kremlin president over the poor quality of Russian arms in Ukraine and failure to develop Western-quality high technologies.
At a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, Vladimir Putin said: “Modest results have been demonstrated in the areas for which Rostec is responsible,”
Rostec, a state corporation owns more than a 1,000 enterprises in the Russian military-industrial complex but, it is claimed, failed to provide high quality weapons, tanks, night vizors, body armour, and other ammunition.
Chemezov, at 70 the same age as Putin, appears to be lashing out in a bid for survival, some observers claim.
In the past, Putin would have dampened such flames, but now powerbrokers close to the Kremlin are flexing their muscles and he cannot stop them, Albats suggests.
A fight for succession is said to be cranking up between key Putin aide Sergey Kiriyenko, 60, a former Russian prime minister who is now deputy chief of staff in the Kremlin
Dmitry Patrushev, 45, the agriculture minister, and son of secretary of Putin’s security council, Nikolai Patrushev, 71 are also vying for position.
