It can’t have escaped the notice of the Ukrainian government that Putin is the architect and booster for the aggression against Ukraine; that unlike almost every war fought in modern times, it really makes a difference who the leader of the enemy nation is; and that his death would very likely spell the end of the war after some days or weeks. They have every motive in the world to want him dead. Can assassinating him really be that difficult, if volunteers for a suicide mission were recruited?
Clearly, it can be just that difficult.
Putin is a very intelligent person, was in the KGB, and has undoubtedly been involved in the planning of numerous assassinations – so, he knows what goes into an assassination attempt.
I have no doubt that he is very careful, surrounds himself with very loyal bodyguards and staffers, and actively minimizes the potential that someone could get close enough to do him harm.
Partly because of the extreme unpopularity of the war against Ukraine despite intense propaganda campaigns, and partly because Putin has many enemies for other reasons, he’s intensely paranoid and recently upgraded his security to even higher levels. He’s probably much harder to assassinate than the president of the US who, whether he likes it or not, has to operate in what is still a relatively free country.
An extreme unpopularity that is not guaranteed to exist after you murder their nation’s leader.
There are almost certainly very few people who get physically close enough to Putin to shoot him strangle him, poison him, etc. And those people have been known to him and his security detail for years if not decades.
So as the outside plotter trying to recruit, where do you go? Aggrieved Ukrainians or even Russians? Nope. You need to recruit somebody who’s already in the inner circle of access, if not necessarily inner circle of power.
That is a comparatively small group who’re carefully monitored by the security team. And darn good bet each of them is monitoring each other too. Even given a roster of who those insiders are, it’d be tough for your plot leader to make contact with any of those folks, much less get along far enough to work out a plan, provide tools & materials, etc. And absent such a roster, you only know the few big names of high powered sub-leaders. You don’t (now) see pix of Putin including the ordinary schlubs like doormen, guards, waiters, flunkies, etc., as we used to. Probably so they can’t be identified by face and targeted by the Ukrainians to become turncoats.
For a typical assassination plot to get going, much less complete successfully, I suggest there needs to be some disaffected member of the inner circle who takes the initiative to contact the Ukrainians. Not the other way around. And those folks will appear, or not, on their own schedule for their own reasons. It’s not something the Ukrainians have much way of encouraging.
ISTM if Putin is to be killed by Ukrainian action, it’ll be a military (probably drone) attack on his transport while he’s going from here to there. It won’t be a shooting or poisoning or … Which of course requires a mole somewhere with advance access to his travel plans enough to put the plan into action.
The other way Putin comes to a bad end (for him, not us) is a coup. Enough of his inner circle overcome their mutual distrust and fear of betrayal to put together a small plot that gets a weapon and a plot member in the same room at the same time. Bang! Problem solved. But those are very high hurdles.
We don’t know if and how many unsuccessful assassination attempts already have been made, because of course the Russians would withhold such information. So we don’t know how probable the scenario really is. But I think he’s very paranoid, and rightly so.
Btw., I like this thought. If I as a German citizen am constantly in fear of a Russian aggression against us, at least he’s in constant fear for his very life and really can’t trust nobody. I’m sure I usually sleep better than him.
Another factor is that killing Putin might make it harder for the subsequent new Russian leader to have an off-ramp for the war. If Putin died of, say, natural causes like stroke or heart attack, it would be easy for the new leader to say “This war was Putin’s idea, and it’s not in Russia’s interests, and Putin is gone, so now I can quietly scale it down.” But if Putin is assassinated in an obvious way, then any end of the war will look like the new Russian leader just capitulated to the adversary, with people asking “Are you just going to cave in to the Ukrainians who murdered our guy and give them what they want?”
I bet those people also have a lot to lose if they betray Putin. The best way to ensure loyalty is to align interests with both the carrot and the stick.
What I’m getting from this thread is Putin is alive because he’s good at staying far away from windows on the 2nd floor and higher.
I don’t think he’s even been to Prague.
To be a naysay, Trump is also very difficult to assassinate, despite the existence of many groups who would like to, without him being a very intelligent person.
I think if you have a decent security apparatus and the protection of international borders, it’s just a hard thing to pull off. And the number of suicidal people with the skills to do so is very small.
Supposedly there are deep bunkers at his vacation palace compound. And even before the invasion of Ukraine, when he traveled, GPS signals were spoofed to obscure his location and make tracking by drone difficult.
I find it even more surprising that Volodymyr Zelensky is still alive.
He’s the main reason Ukraine hasn’t targeted Putin. Even a suspicion that Ukraine tried assassination would trigger a massive effort to kill Zelensky.
Putin is safe unless his bodyguards become traitorous. Thats what happened to Indira Gandhi after Operation Blue Star angered her Sikh guards.
If Putin cracks down in Russia that could anger the wrong people with access to him.
I don’t think this is correct. Russia has certainly tried to assassinate and kidnap Zelensky:
If “Putin” was killed, wouldn’t another body double just pop up in his place?
There must be a dozen of them by now.
EDIT: (I thought it works better with quotes)
No, Putin has made absolutely certain that nobody could possibly “pop up to take his place”.
Or, of course, they just get lucky. They attack a transport for some other reason, and happen to get Putin. That sort of thing does happen, sometimes.
Agreed. No info on attempts that got as far as a failing attack, nor any info on plots foiled much earlier. Presumably foiled plots greatly exceed foiled attacks. And foiled attempted recruitments going one way or attempted betrayals going the other way doubtless outnumber foiled plots.
There are a lot of filters between the initial idea of killing Putin and the reality of having killed Putin. No matter who is having that initial idea.
I believe you misunderstood @QuickSilver. I read him as saying Putin has many body doubles. And if somebody who’s seemingly Putin is killed, it won’t be the real one. Real Putin will still be safe in his bunker.
And there are more doubles where that redshirt came from. So no loss to the real Putin.
OR, we misunderstood @Chronos. Perhaps he means Putin has done away with all his body doubles to make sure none of them pop up to replace him.
We may never know.
Excellent point I had missed completely. Thank you!
It’s turtles doubles all the way down.
If I was a Russian who looked only a bit like Putin, I would hide in the basement…