Russia: While Putin gets ‘cancer surgery’, he may handover power temporarily to ex-spy chief
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Dictators often steal others’ sleep, but they also lose their own as palace conspiracies keep them awake. Russian President Vladimir Putin may be no exception.
Later this month, Putin may undergo a cancer surgery and his trusted aide, not the Prime Minister, may stand in for him during the period, the media reported. This aide, Nikolai Patrushev, is viewed as the second most powerful man in Russia.
The reason for Putin’s temporary absence from the Kremlin, the seat of Russian power and government for decades, is that he is suspected to have contracted abdominal cancer, for which he may have to undergo surgery, as also Parkinson’s Disease detected 18 months ago.
According to reports in a section of the media, he may not entrust Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin with the responsibility, and would temporarily give up control of the Russian war in Ukraine to his trusted former spy chief.
Putin himself was once part of the KGB, the predecessor of the existing Russian Federal Security Service (FSS).
His likely temporary successor, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev, 70, is a Russian politician, and security and intelligence officer. He served as Director of the FSS, the main successor organization to the Soviet KGB, from 1999 to 2008. He is the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia since 2008.
President Putin reportedly delayed surgery in April, which will now take place only after the Victory Day Commemoration of Russia’s World War II victory in Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, The Daily Mail reported.
If he goes under the scalpel, Putin would reportedly nominate the hardliner Patrushev to take temporary control of the Ukraine invasion, according to the media outlet, which quoted a Kremlin insider.
They view Patrushev as a key architect of the war strategy in Ukraine so far, and the man who convinced President Putin that Kyiv was ‘infested’ with neo-Nazis, the media reported.
“I don’t know for exactly how long (it will incapacitate Putin after the surgery)… I think it’ll be for a short time,” they quoted the insider source as saying.
Putin was “unlikely to agree to transfer power” (to the PM) but was ready to put in place a “chargé d’affaires” to control Russia and the war effort. “So, while Putin has the operation and comes to his senses, likely in two or three days, the actual control of the country passes only to Patrushev,” the source added.
Interestingly, under the Russian Constitution, power from the President should pass solely to the Prime Minister.
“They recommended Putin to undergo surgery, the date of which is being discussed and agreed,” the outlet stated. “There seems to be no particular urgency, but it cannot be delayed either.”
He also suffers from “Parkinson’s Disease and Schizoaffective Disorder”, which carries symptoms of schizophrenia including hallucinations and mania.
The Kremlin has always strongly denied Putin has medical problems and portrays he is in robust health, even as he has been mysteriously absent in recent years, The Daily Mail reported.
