Vladimir Putin hunkers down for fear of assassination
Russia has stepped up security protocols for President Vladimir Putin amid fears of assassination as he grows more isolated and absorbed by his war in Ukraine.
May force be with you
Russia has stepped up security protocols for President Vladimir Putin amid fears of assassination as he grows more isolated and absorbed by his war in Ukraine.
In recent months, Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO), which guards top officials, has sharply tightened security around the president. He spends more time in underground bunkers micromanaging the war and has grown more detached from civilian affairs, according to people who know Putin in Moscow and a person close to European intelligence services.
Putin’s isolation has increased in recent years, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic. But as of March, the Kremlin’s concern over a coup d’état or an assassination attempt, specifically involving drones, has intensified sharply, said the person close to European intelligence.
“The shock of Ukraine’s drone Operation Spiderweb is still there,” a person familiar with Putin told the FT. Last year, Ukrainian drones attacked Russian airfields beyond the Arctic Circle. Security fears were additionally fuelled by the US’s seizure of Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro in January, said a second person also familiar with the president.
In response, the FSO has further tightened stringent security measures. Putin has cut down his visits and security checks for people meeting him in person have been tightened further, said the person close to European intelligence.
The president and his family have stopped going to their residences in the Moscow region and in north-western Valdai. Putin is spending more time in bunkers, including in the Krasnodar area in southern Russia, working from there for several weeks, while state media use pre-recorded footage to project normality.
Staff in the president’s immediate circle, including cooks, photographers and bodyguards, have been barred from taking public transport and using mobile phones or internet-enabled devices around him. Surveillance systems have been installed in their homes.
People in Russia who know Putin said recent internet shutdowns in Moscow are also at least partly related to the president’s security and anti-drone protection.
FSO agents now conduct large-scale checks with the help of dog units, and are stationed along the banks of the Moscow river, ready to react in case of drone attacks, according to European intelligence.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Security concerns are not limited to Putin. According to the person close to European intelligence, security service representatives at a meeting with the president late last year blamed one another for failures to protect Russia’s top military personnel, including the killing of Fanil Sarvarov, a lieutenant general — the latest in a series of Ukraine-linked attacks.
Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB, the federal security service, blamed the defence ministry, which, unlike other agencies, lacks a unit dedicated to protecting senior officials. Viktor Zolotov, head of the National Guard and Putin’s former bodyguard, denied responsibility, citing limited resources.
Ultimately, the president called for calm and tasked the FSO with ensuring the security of 10 senior generals, including three deputies, to Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, who until then had been the only officer under such protection.
The tightening of security measures has coincided with Putin, who traditionally has been more absorbed in geopolitics, dropping domestic policies to concentrate on the war, said two people who speak to him.
The president holds daily meetings with military officials, focusing on operational details such as the names of small Ukrainian settlements that are changing hands. Non-war-related officials, in contrast, are typically granted an audience only once every few weeks or months.
“Putin spends 70 per cent of his time running the war and the other 30 per cent meeting [someone like] the president of Indonesia or dealing with the economy,” said one person who knows him, adding that the only way to get more access is through “doing more war”.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based political analyst, said: “Putin is like the new Banksy sculpture in London [a man carrying a flag that covers his face], he does not want to see or hear. He listens only to the security services, which now run all spheres of life, and hopes that people will adapt to this as the new normal.”
The president’s remoteness has fuelled frustration among Russians as they are growing tired of the war and grapple with mounting domestic issues.
According to state-backed as well as independent pollsters, Putin’s approval ratings have slipped to their lowest level since autumn 2022, when he announced a partial mobilisation, prompting hundreds of thousands of young men to flee the country.
Social media is filled with videos of ordinary Russians and influencers criticising the authorities over internet crackdowns, taxes for small businesses and livestock culls in Siberia.
The most prominent has been Viktoria Bonya, a Monaco-based lifestyle blogger. In an 18-minute video address to Putin last month, she said that “people are afraid of him”. The clip gained more than 1.5mn likes.
While Bonya made it clear that she does not oppose the regime, the scale of the video’s reach forced the Kremlin to acknowledge it had seen it.
After Bonya’s speech, Putin publicly addressed internet crackdowns for the first time, urging officials to “inform citizens” properly and not to “focus solely on bans”.
On April 27, Putin made his second public appearance this year, visiting a rhythmic gymnastics school in his native St Petersburg. A video released by the Kremlin shows him in a brief exchange with a group of girls in black leotards, at the end of which he kisses one of them on the forehead.
The Kremlin has long used such staged interactions with ordinary people to demonstrate Putin’s approachability.
“A sure sign that Putin is worried about his falling approval ratings: he’s publicly kissing children again,” said Farida Rustamova, independent Vlast newsletter founder and political analyst, referring to similar instances, such as when Putin kissed a boy on the stomach in 2006, apparently in an attempt to portray the president as closer to the masses.
The president’s few trips and meetings so far this year, compared with at least 17 in 2025, are another sign of tighter security and a diminished focus on domestic affairs. Last year’s engagements included visits to the Kursk region bordering Ukraine and to military headquarters where he appeared in uniform at least five times.
“The gap between what Putin is willing to deal with and what is expected of him is widening,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, adding that this was unlikely to change any time soon.
The public’s “bursts of discontent will only become more frequent”, she added.
