A Putin spin doctor who turned into one of his biggest critics has died in Moscow.
Gleb Pavlovsky, 71, issued warnings against the war and questioned the dictator’s state of mind.
Glab Pavlovsky suffered a stroke tend days ago[/caption]
He is understood to have suffered a stroke ten days ago, and died on Sunday “after a long and serious illness” in a hospice following treatment in Moscow’s Botkin hospital.
Pavlovsky was fired in 2011 after he warned against power-hungry Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin for a third term.
He told how Putin has changed and questioned his sanity.
On the invasion of Ukraine, Pavlovsky said: “The previous Putin would not have done this.
“He was a very sane-thinking person.
“But this has all vanished now.
“He has an obsession about Ukraine that he didn’t previously have.
“He is reacting now to the pictures in his own head.”
Pavlovsky switched from Kremlin insider and implementer of Putin’s plans to a staunch critic.
In 2012, he participated in the opposition “March of Millions” on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow.
He dismissed elections held in Russia in 2021 as the “most shameful” in the country’s history.
He warned in advance of the war that it would be a terrible mistake and a “great blow” for Russia.
Two months before Putin’s invasion, he said: “Ukraine is a bad place for a war… It will be a people’s war on [Kyiv’s] part.”
On the day it was declared he said: “We cannot win it [this war].”
Later, expressing the price paid by Russians for Putin’s mistake, he said: “We absolutely do not need additional territories that need to be maintained in a police regime, on the one hand, and fed, on the other.”
Putin had “a desire to drown everything in general madness”.
Earlier Putin “was inclined then to discuss things with advisers and he was more open to alternative opinions”.
But lately Putin’s “only contact with the world is through his inner circle.
“He can’t stand it if any of them have their own stance. For him, this would be a catastrophe”.