A European Union intelligence agency has concluded that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin fears assassination and a coup attempt by members of his own inner circle, according to a classified report that details sweeping new security measures around the Kremlin.
The document was passed to iStories by a source holding an official government position in a European country, who risked their career and reputation in doing so. The outlet states it was able to independently verify part of the report’s contents and that the source’s official standing makes deliberate disinformation a costly and unlikely explanation for the leak.
Fear From Within, Not From Ukraine
According to the dossier, since March 2026 the Kremlin has been consumed by fears of information leaks, a conspiracy, and a potential coup attempt. The report is explicit on the nature of the threat: “The Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself have been concerned about potential leaks of sensitive information, as well as the risk of a plot or coup attempt targeting the Russian president. He is particularly wary of the use of drones for a possible assassination attempt by members of the Russian political elite.”
The threat, in other words, is not coming from the front line but from inside the Kremlin itself.
The Security Bubble Around Putin
In response, the Federal Protective Service (FSO) has dramatically restructured its operations around the Russian leader. Visitors to the presidential administration now pass through two levels of screening, including full body searches by FSO officers. Employees working in direct proximity to Putin are forbidden from using internet-connected devices and prohibited from taking public transport, moving exclusively in FSO vehicles. Surveillance systems have been installed in the private homes of cooks, photographers, and bodyguards who work with the president — an extraordinary intrusion that signals the depth of distrust now permeating Putin’s inner circle.
The FSO has also taken control of all media appearances involving the Russian leader, coordinating and approving any information or media publications featuring him, based on a classified presidential decree. The report suggests this explains why footage of Putin’s public appearances is increasingly pre-recorded rather than live.
Putin’s physical movements have been radically curtailed. He and his family have stopped visiting their usual residences in the Moscow region and at Valdai, his secluded retreat between Moscow and St Petersburg. He has not visited a single military facility in 2026, despite making such trips regularly throughout 2025. Instead, he has spent long stretches in upgraded bunkers, often in the Krasnodar region on the Black Sea coast, working from there for weeks at a time while Russian state media broadcasts pre-prepared footage to maintain the appearance of normalcy.
In certain districts of Moscow, communication networks are periodically shut down. FSO units conduct large-scale sweeps using canine teams and are deployed along the Moscow River, positioned to respond to potential drone attacks.
One detail stands out in its mundaneness: not a single State Duma deputy received an invitation to this year’s Victory Day parade on Red Square – a decision read by iStories as an indirect but telling indicator of the extreme degree of Putin’s fear of assassination or conspiracy.
Shoigu: The Name the Kremlin Does Not Want Said Aloud
The most explosive element of the report concerns Sergei Shoigu, the former Defence Minister removed from that post in May 2024 and appointed Secretary of the Security Council — a role widely understood as a managed demotion. The intelligence document is unambiguous: Shoigu “is associated with the risk of a coup, as he retains significant influence within the military high command”.
The arrest of his former first deputy and close associate Ruslan Tsalikov on March 5, 2026 — on charges of embezzlement, money laundering and bribery — is characterised in the report as “a breach of the tacit protection agreements among elites, weakening Shoigu and increasing the likelihood that he himself could become the target of a judicial investigation”. In Russia’s system, such informal guarantees of immunity are the glue that holds the elite together. Breaking them signals that no one is safe.
The Meeting That Exposed the Cracks
The report describes in striking detail a closed-door confrontation between Russia’s security chiefs following the assassination of Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov in Moscow on December 22, 2025, most likely carried out by Ukrainian intelligence. Putin convened a narrow meeting of senior security figures three days later, on December 25 — the day of a second attack on Russian security personnel at the same location.
What followed was not a display of Kremlin cohesion. The report describes how, “emphasising the fear and demoralisation this has caused among personnel, Valery Gerasimov strongly criticised his counterparts in the special services for their lack of foresight.” FSB director Alexander Bortnikov responded defensively, arguing that systematic prevention of such attacks was impossible. Rosgvardia chief Viktor Zolotov reminded Gerasimov that his forces were not available to protect Defence Ministry officers — a remark that reportedly provoked the General Staff chief’s fury.
“At the end of this tense meeting, Vladimir Putin called for calm, proposing an alternative working format and instructing participants to present concrete solutions to the issue within one week,” the report states. The outcome was an expansion of the FSO’s protective remit to cover ten additional senior military commanders, including three deputy chiefs of the General Staff and GRU head Admiral Igor Kostyukov. Until that point, Gerasimov had been the only military figure covered by enhanced FSO protection.
What Can Be Independently Verified
iStories notes that several elements of the report are corroborated by its own independent sources. A former FSB officer had previously told the outlet that the large-scale internet outages in Moscow were orchestrated by the FSO — not the FSB, as Russian media had reported — but the story was held for lack of a second source. The intelligence report says the same. Multiple iStories sources also independently confirm the heightened fear of conspiracy and coup within Putin’s circle.
The significance of the leak extends beyond the specific details it contains. A document of this kind, precise and sourced from an official within a European government, suggests that Western intelligence services have achieved a level of penetration into Kremlin decision-making that would have seemed unlikely even a year ago. Whether that penetration is genuine, or whether the document itself is a controlled leak designed to sow distrust within the Russian elite, is a question the report does not answer — and perhaps cannot.
