Are Ukrainians AND Russians HUNTING Putin?… Is He HIDING in His Bunker Like a TRAPPED RAT?

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]The most feared man on earth is scared.

[00:00:02]Not of NATO, not of Zelensky, not of Western sanctions or American weapons.

[00:00:07]The man who launched the largest land invasion in Europe since World War II, the man who rebuilt Russia's military, crushed descent, jailed opponents, and ruled with an iron fist for over two decades is now hiding underground. He is sleeping in bunkers. He is bugging the homes of his own cooks. He has stopped visiting his own residences. And the threat he fears most is not coming from Ukraine. It is coming from inside his own house. This is not speculation. This is not propaganda. A leaked European intelligence dossier, reviewed and published by CNN, the Financial Times, and multiple Western news organizations, reveals that Vladimir Putin, one of the most powerful autocrats alive, is now operating like a man who knows someone in his inner circle wants him dead. Let us start with what we actually know.

[00:00:49]According to a leaked intelligence report from a European agency, Putin has significantly changed how he lives and moves. He has stopped visiting his residences in the Moscow region and in Valdai, Novgorod Oblast, places he used to frequent regularly.

[00:01:02]Instead, he has been spending weeks at a time in upgraded underground bunkers in the Krasnodar region, a Black Sea coastal area far from Moscow.

[00:01:10]These are not casual visits. These are extended stays. The Kremlin's own press service has been releasing pre-recorded videos of Putin to make it appear as though he is still moving around freely, when in reality he has been locked away underground. The security measures around him have gone far beyond anything previously reported.

[00:01:26]Visitors to the presidential administration now undergo two full levels of screening, including complete body searches conducted by officers of the Federal Protective Service, known as the FSO.

[00:01:37]The people who work most closely with Putin, his cooks, his bodyguards, his personal photographers, are now banned from using public transport. They cannot take the Moscow Metro to get to work.

[00:01:46]They must travel privately. They are not allowed to use personal mobile phones anywhere near him. Instead, they are issued devices with no internet access.

[00:01:53]Surveillance systems have been installed in the homes of close staff members, not just at the workplace, in their personal homes.

[00:02:00]Putin does not want anyone near his food, near his schedule, near his image, unless they have been completely locked down.

[00:02:07]The Institute for the Study of War, a respected Washington-based defense research group, confirmed that it had observed corroborating evidence of enhanced security measures for Putin and high-ranking Russian officials.

[00:02:18]The ISW noted that there have been numerous assassinations and assassination attempts against senior Russian officials throughout the war in Ukraine, some of which have been credited to Ukraine.

[00:02:27]These operations, the ISW stated, could be pushing Putin to worry about his safety and the safety of other senior officials.

[00:02:34]This is not a fringe theory. Multiple serious institutions are watching the same pattern unfold. Now, here is where the story becomes extraordinary.

[00:02:42]The intelligence report does not just describe a man afraid of Ukrainian drones, it describes a man afraid of his own people.

[00:02:48]According to the dossier, since the beginning of March 2026, the Kremlin has been on high alert about the risk of a plot or coup attempt Russian president.

[00:02:57]Putin specifically fears the use of drones for a possible assassination attempt, not by Ukrainian military forces, but by members of the Russian political elite itself. This is a man who built his power on controlling every room he walked into. He now does not feel safe in any room at all.

[00:03:12]The turning point, according to the intelligence report, came in December 2025. On December 22nd, Lieutenant General Fanal Sarvarov, the chief of the Russian General Staff's Operational Training Department, was assassinated in Moscow.

[00:03:25]A bomb exploded beneath his vehicle. He died in broad daylight in the Russian capital in what is widely believed to have been an operation carried out by Ukrainian intelligence agents. Three days later, on December 25th, Putin convened an urgent meeting of senior security officials.

[00:03:40]What happened in that room was not calm strategic planning.

[00:03:43]It was open warfare between Russia's most powerful men. General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff and the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the Russian military, publicly attacked Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service, the FSB.

[00:03:58]Gerasimov accused Bortnikov and his service of failing to protect senior officers. Bortnikov pushed back saying his agency lacked the resources and personnel to prevent such attacks.

[00:04:07]He then criticized the Ministry of Defense for not having a dedicated unit to protect its own high-ranking officials.

[00:04:13]Viktor Zolotov, the head of the National Guard, then chimed in to say that his forces could not be redirected to protect Ministry of Defense officers.

[00:04:21]Three of Russia's most powerful security figures were sitting in a room blaming each other while Putin watched. At the end of the meeting, Putin reportedly called for calm and asked everyone to come back in a week with concrete solutions. The solution he landed on was expanding the FSO's mandate to provide personal security to 10 additional senior generals, three of whom are deputy chiefs of the general staff.

[00:04:42]The assassination of Surovikin was not an isolated incident. It was part of a much larger pattern. Ukraine has been systematically targeting Russian military leadership for years. Ukrainian drone forces carried out nearly 820,000 confirmed successful strikes in 2025 alone, according to Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

[00:05:00]In that year, Ukrainian drones killed or seriously injured more than 240,000 Russian soldiers.

[00:05:06]Ukrainian forces have also been striking deeper and deeper into Russian territory. Operation Spiderweb, carried out on June 1st, 2025, saw 117 drones simultaneously strike five Russian Air Force bases across five time zones, including including a base in Eastern Siberia, more than 4,300 km from Ukraine. Roughly 20 Russian military aircraft were hit. About 20% of Russia's operational long-range aviation fleet was damaged in that single operation.

[00:05:32]Many of those aircraft, including Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 bombers, have not been produced since the Soviet Union collapsed and cannot be replaced.

[00:05:40]In 2026, Ukraine's drone campaign has only intensified. A study published in March 2026 found that Ukraine carried out 40 major drone attacks against mid- and long-range targets in Russia in the first half of that month alone. Roughly 50% more than the record count of drone strikes for any full month in the entire war.

[00:05:58]Overnight drone swarms of 100 to 200 aircraft penetrating Russian airspace became routine. Russia's own Duma member, Andrei Gurulyov, a retired lieutenant general, admitted publicly that Russia is too large to fully defend against Ukrainian deep drone strikes, and that Russia lacks the air defense forces needed to create a continuous protective shield. A Russian State Duma member said that out loud, on the record.

[00:06:21]Even Russia's most vocal supporters inside his parliament are no longer pretending the country's air defenses are working.

[00:06:26]Now we get to the name that has shaken the Kremlin more than any drone strike, Sergei Shoigu.

[00:06:32]For more than two decades, Shoigu was one of the most recognizable faces of Putin's Russia. He served as Defense Minister from 2012 to 2024, through the annexation of Crimea, through the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, through every major military decision of the modern era.

[00:06:48]He and Putin used to vacation together in Siberia. He was the third or fourth most powerful person in Russia for over a decade.

[00:06:55]In 2024, Putin removed him from the Defense Ministry and reassigned him to the role of Secretary of the Security Council. It was widely understood as a demotion, a result of years of corruption inside the Defense Ministry and the catastrophic performance of the Russian military in the early phases of the war. Putin replaced him with Andrei Belousov, a civilian economist, in a clear signal that the war machine needed financial discipline, not military leadership from Shoigu. But according to the leaked European intelligence report, Shoigu did not become powerless. He still retains significant influence within the military high command. And the report identifies him directly as associated with the risk of a coup. The intelligence dossier does not present hard evidence of an active plot.

[00:07:35]What it presents is a risk assessment based on Shoigu's position, his network of relationships inside the military, and recent events that have weakened his personal protection.

[00:07:44]On March 5th, 2026, Ruslan Tsalikov, Shoigu's former deputy and one of his closest associates, was arrested on charges of embezzlement, money laundering, and bribery. The intelligence report describes this arrest as a breach of the tacit protection agreements among elites. In Russia's political system, a kind of informal understanding has long existed.

[00:08:02]Powerful figures protect each others people.

[00:08:05]When Tsalikov was arrested, that agreement was broken.

[00:08:08]The report says it weakens Shoigu and increases the likelihood that he himself could become the target of a criminal investigation.

[00:08:15]A cornered, threatened man with deep connections inside the military is, by any definition, a dangerous man. It is worth being precise about what Western analysts actually think. Not everyone believes the coup threat is real.

[00:08:27]Mark Galeotti, a respected British political scientist and expert on Russia, described the wave of publications about the intelligence report as resembling a psychological operation designed to sow paranoia among the Russian elite.

[00:08:40]CNN itself noted that report may partly aim to destabilize the Kremlin.

[00:08:45]And that European intelligence services have significant motivation to create the impression of mounting strife in Moscow.

[00:08:52]These are legitimate cautions. The report does not name its European source, which makes verifying it difficult.

[00:08:58]But what analysts consistently acknowledge is this: Regardless of the report's motivations, the security measures it describes are real. They are confirmed by independent sources and the broader pattern of Putin's reduced visibility, his absence from military facilities, and his increased use of pre-recorded footage is observable and documented. There's also the matter of Russia's economy.

[00:09:19]Putin has been spending approximately 70% of his time managing the war, according to a source cited by the Financial Times.

[00:09:26]The Russian economy contracted 0.5% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026, far below projections.

[00:09:33]There were 11 corporate debt defaults in 2024. That number jumped to 24 in 2025.

[00:09:39]In just the first 3 months of 2026, there were already 11 more. The war is consuming everything, money, men, equipment, political capital. Russia's GDP in January and February 2026 was down 1.8% compared to the same period the previous year. Inflation is rising, labor shortages are growing, sanctions are tightening their grip. And ordinary Russians are beginning to notice.

[00:09:59]Putin's approval ratings, already an imperfect measure in an authoritarian state where honest polling is nearly impossible, have been declining for months. The state-controlled Russian Public Opinion Research Center VTSIOM recorded a decline in Putin's ratings for seven consecutive weeks.

[00:10:14]It dropped to 65.6% the lowest level since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

[00:10:20]The independent Levada Center recorded Putin's approval at 79% in April 2026, down from 87% just 6 months earlier in September 2025. That is a significant drop by the standards of Russian polling. The Kremlin was reportedly advising loyal media outlets to either site only the most favorable polling numbers or avoid reporting on the figures altogether. Ilya Remeslo, a prominent pro-Kremlin blogger, wrote a scathing article attacking Putin personally and calling him a war criminal.

[00:10:47]Less than 2 days later, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital under unclear circumstances. His current whereabouts remain unknown. The internet blackouts that have plagued Russian cities, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and dozens of regional centers, are themselves connected to Putin's security apparatus.

[00:11:02]According to the intelligence report, the internet shutdowns in Moscow are being carried out by the FSO, Putin's personal protective service, not the FSB as previously assumed. Multiple independent sources confirmed this detail to investigators. The internet is being cut to prevent drone targeting, to prevent communication between potential conspirators, to control the information space as Putin's grip on public sentiment loosens.

[00:11:25]By the end of 2025, Russia ranked first in the world by the number of internet shutdowns. 37,166 hours of outages affecting almost the entire population of 146 million people.

[00:11:38]Here's the full picture assembled from all available evidence. Putin has not visited a single military facility in 2026. He has abandoned his known residences. He's living in fortified underground bunkers hours from Moscow.

[00:11:50]The Kremlin is broadcasting pre-recorded videos of him to simulate normal activity. His personal staff have surveillance systems installed in their homes. His security perimeter has been expanded to include 10 additional senior generals.

[00:12:02]His oldest ally in government has been identified as a coup risk. His security chiefs argued bitterly in front of him over who is responsible for keeping Russian generals alive. His approval rating is at its lowest point in 4 years. His economy is shrinking. His drones are being destroyed. His oil infrastructure is under attack. And a Ukrainian drone war machine that carried out 820,000 strikes in 1 year is planning to go even further in 2026.

[00:12:25]This is not the picture of an untouchable strongman. This is the picture of a man calculating threats from every direction at once. From Ukrainian drones reaching into Arctic air bases. From assassination teams targeting his generals on Moscow streets. From disgruntled former allies who still command loyalty inside the military. From an economy that can no longer sustain the war at current cost.

[00:12:46]And from a population that is beginning slowly, cautiously, in the only way that is safe in Russia to question why the war is still going.

[00:12:53]To understand why all of this matters beyond Russia's borders, you have to understand what Putin's psychological state means for decision-making.

[00:13:01]Analysts who study authoritarian regimes have noted repeatedly that isolated leaders make worse decisions.

[00:13:07]When the information reaching a ruler is filtered, when advisors are afraid to deliver bad news, when access requires double screenings and burner phones, when the leader himself spends most of his time underground, the decisions made at the top become increasingly disconnected from reality on the ground.

[00:13:22]Stalin became more paranoid and erratic in his final years.

[00:13:25]Saddam Hussein made catastrophic strategic miscalculations in part because his inner circle was too afraid to tell him the truth. The more isolated Putin becomes, the greater the risk that he misreads the situation. Whether that means escalating the war, miscalculating Western resolve, or making a decision about nuclear weapons based on bad information.

[00:13:44]There's also the question of what happens if Putin does not survive.

[00:13:47]Russia has no clear succession plan.

[00:13:49]There is no vice president, no constitutionally designated successor with broad popular or elite backing.

[00:13:55]The people closest to power, Gerasimov, Bortnikov, Zolotov, Shoigu, are already fighting each other in meetings. A sudden power vacuum in a country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal is one of the most dangerous scenarios that Western governments plan for.

[00:14:09]The fact that European intelligence agencies are closely monitoring the stability of Putin's inner circle is not just about Ukraine. It is about preventing a situation where nuclear weapons end up under the control of a faction that is not bound by the same deterrence calculations that have kept the world safe since 1945.

[00:14:26]Then there is Ukraine's perspective.

[00:14:27]Every senior Russian general assassinated, every airbase struck, every bunker Putin is forced to retreat to represents a concrete strategic achievement.

[00:14:35]Ukraine cannot match Russia in raw manpower or territory, but it can, and demonstrably has, made Russia pay an enormous price for the war. It has forced the enemy supreme commander underground.

[00:14:45]It has created open conflict between Russia's top security officials. It has pushed Putin's approval ratings to their lowest point in 4 years. It has destroyed a fifth of Russia's operational long-range bomber fleet in a single night. These are not the achievements of a country that is losing. These are the achievements of a country that has fundamentally rewritten the rules of modern warfare.

[00:15:04]Whether Putin will survive all of this is something no intelligence agency, no analyst, and no journalist can answer with certainty. Autocracies do not announce their collapse in advance. But what is certain is that the man who once projected absolute unshakable confidence, who flew fighter jets, rode horses bare-chested, dove for ancient coins, and held his own press conferences for hours, is now a man who will not let his cook take the subway to work. And that tells you everything you need to know about where this story is going.

[00:15:31]The Russia that Putin built was always supposed to be invincible. The military parades, the nuclear rhetoric, the image of a strong sovereign state immune to western pressure. This was the brand.

[00:15:40]May 9th, Victory Day, the day Russia celebrates its role in defeating Nazi Germany, has always been the centerpiece of that brand. Tanks rolling through Red Square, intercontinental ballistic missiles on display, fighter jets screaming overhead.

[00:15:54]This year, for the 2026 Victory Day parade, the Kremlin announced that heavy weaponry, tanks, missiles, would not be on display. The official reason given was security, citing the threat of Ukrainian drone strikes.

[00:16:07]Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "Against the backdrop of the terrorist threat, all measures are being taken to minimize the danger." Russia's most important military celebration stripped of its missiles and tanks because a country with a fraction of Russia's military budget has made it too dangerous to put them on the street.

[00:16:24]That image says more than any intelligence report ever could. Putin is still in power. He still controls the nuclear arsenal. He still has hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in Ukraine. He has not been overthrown. He has not been assassinated. The Kremlin dismisses the intelligence report.

[00:16:39]Peskov's response to questions about the European intelligence agency was simply, "What European intelligence agency? I'm not aware that such an agency exists."

[00:16:47]But Peskov also quietly admitted that extra security measures are always taken ahead of major holidays. The question is not whether any of this will end tomorrow. The question is whether the trajectory is sustainable for Putin, for Russia, and for the war.

[00:17:00]And the evidence increasingly points in one direction.

[00:17:03]A man who once made the world afraid of him is now afraid of his own shadow. A leader who built his identity on strength is now building walls underground. And a war that was supposed to last days is now consuming everything, his economy, his generals, his approval ratings, and his freedom of movement. The rat is in the trap.

[00:17:19]The only question left is who closes the door.