Putin at Risk of Poisoning from 'Gangster Chums': Ex-NATO Colonel

The war in Ukraine is putting Russian President Vladimir Putin at risk of poisoning from his "gangster chums," a former NATO-colonel has said.

Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert and former British Army colonel, suggested that Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region this month will have made Putin paranoid about his closest allies, and that he's now "on thin ice."

De Bretton-Gordon said that while he believes Putin "does have an iron grip" the fact that "so many people are talking and understanding what is happening, he's got to sort this out very quickly."

"If he doesn't, there'll be lots of his gangster chums who'll quite happily slip something in his tea and take over," he said in an interview with The Sun. "Putin is on thin ice and the temperature is getting hotter."

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

Kyiv launched its cross-border raid on August 6 in Kursk, which borders Ukraine's Sumy region, seemingly catching Moscow off guard,

Ukrainian forces have so far seized control of 1,150 square kilometers (444 square miles) of Russian territory and 82 settlements in Kursk, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, said on August 15.

The scale of the offensive is significant—Ukraine is now reported to have seized more territory in the Kursk region in days than Russia has captured in Ukraine since the beginning of the year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's troops are showing no signs of slowing down.

It also marks the first time that foreign troops have seized Russian territory since World War II.

While Russia has sought to downplay the scale of Ukraine's offensive, many pro-war military bloggers quickly took to Telegram to voice their discontent on how swiftly Kyiv's forces seized Russian territory.

One Russian military blogger called the situation "hell on earth" and suggested that the assault had been long-planned.

"We knew that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would go to Kursk Oblast. We knew that they were pulling forces together. We knew everything as usual, the guys from the fields reported it, but the higher-ups did nothing," pro-war blogger Anastasia Kashevarova said on Telegram.

Military blogger Ravreba said there is "a complete disregard for the state of war in Moscow" and complained that "it is more convenient for the new Minister of Defense to calculate how much the grandfathers stole than to kick generals who do something only when they are bent over with a whip and an ax."

Kremlin propagandist Sergey Mardan also described the incursion as "chaos" during a show he hosted on Solovyov Live, days after the incursion was launched.

Kremlin critic Bill Browder, a British American financier who describes himself as Putin's "No. 1 Enemy," said in an interview with Times Radio published on August 8 that the incursion has been "humiliating" for Putin.

"I think this is a dramatic development and something which both symbolically and militarily really has huge implications. Symbolically, this makes Putin look weak," said Browder, CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, the investment adviser to the Hermitage Fund, which was once Russia's largest foreign portfolio investor.

"This is the war he started which has now bitten off a piece of Russia. And depending on how this plays out, how long [Ukraine] can hold the territory, can they get more territory, it's even more humiliating for Putin," said Browder.

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