However much Western leaders inveigh against Russian disinformation (which, yes, is a real issue), we should never pretend this is not a two-way street. The sudden spate of news stories reporting that a conveniently anonymous “European intelligence agency” claims that the Kremlin fears a coup looks suspiciously more like a psy-op meant to generate paranoia in the Russian elite than a serious assessment.
The claim is that Putin’s personal security has been dramatically stepped up, not simply to protect him from increasingly frequent and far-ranging Ukrainian drone strikes but, in particular, because since the beginning of March, the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself have been concerned about the risk of a plot or coup attempt targeting the Russian President.
Specifically, it claims that Sergei Shoigu, defense minister until 2024 and now secretary of the country’s Security Council, “is associated with the risk of a coup, as he retains significant influence within the military high command.”
It is entirely plausible that security around the president has been stepped up, regardless of whether they think the threat plausible or likely
The aging Putin may indeed fear direct Ukrainian attack, and his praetorians of the FSO, the Federal Protection Service, are, like any security service, both professionally paranoid and responsive to their principal’s concerns. It is entirely plausible that security around the President has been stepped up, regardless of whether they think the threat plausible or likely. The scaling back of Saturday’s Victory Day parade in Moscow does seem to be to avoid creating too obvious a target for Ukrainian attack.
Yet an attack on Putin? While Moscow did try to target Volodymyr Zelensky at the very start of the war, since then there has been an unspoken bilateral moratorium on strikes against the enemy’s senior leadership. Despite Russian claims of an attempted attack on one of Putin’s residencies in December, this agreement remains in place. Were Kyiv to target Putin, let alone kill him, it could expect savage retribution.
It is the talk of a coup, though, that has inevitably attracted the most attention, and which seems the least credible.
The Russian security system is carefully organized to minimize the risk of a coup. Various military and paramilitary forces balance each other, and the FSO is packed with loyalists and empowered to monitor whomever it feels it must.
While Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries did turn in 2023, this was a mutiny, not a coup: the goal was not to topple the President but to persuade him to abandon his support for Shoigu. In any case, the 2,000 or so men who neared Moscow would have had no chance of taking the city, let alone ousting Putin.
Presenting Shoigu as a particular putschist is especially laughable. Fairly or not, he has faced the brunt of criticism within the military for the bungled initial invasion and subsequent failures of leadership, strategy and supply. There has been a comprehensive campaign to sack, prosecute or dismiss his cronies within the ministry. Those officers with whom he was associated, including Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, whom he appointed, have pointedly disassociated themselves from him.
It is hard to impossible to imagine that he has the authority and credibility within the high command to stage a coup, let alone the freedom of operation to do so without coming to the attention of the informants, wiretaps and email interceptions of DVKR, the Federal Security Service’s Military Counterintelligence Department. Name notwithstanding, it is there more to snoop on the soldiers than protect them from foreign spies.
Besides, those claims about Putin’s security which can be externally validated look distinctly questionable. Contrary to the claims, for example, Putin – who for years has been cutting back on travel and public engagements round the country – has maintained a program of public events, including his recent meeting with the Iranian foreign minister in St. Petersburg.
This may be more dodgy intelligence, coming as it does after a Swedish report that dramatically overstated the pressure on the Russian economy. There is a desperate appetite in Europe for a deus ex machina, for some miraculous end to the Ukraine war. The thought of Putin being toppled by a coup or the country imploding certainly fits the bill. This would hardly be the first time intelligence agencies succumbed to the temptation to provide their masters with what they want, not need, to hear.
Yet with the news that NATO has been meeting with film and television producers in the hope of influencing their output, it is also worth bearing in mind that this may be a deliberate deception. Maybe the idea is to put thoughts into people’s minds. Maybe it is to get Putin to turn on Shoigu, who is a personal friend, and get the rest of the elite wondering if they might be next. This would hardly be the first time we have seen such misdirection in the covert shadow wars waged by the spooks.
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