If reports are to be believed, Russian President Vladimir Putin will no longer be in office if he loses the war in Ukraine. In an interview with Battlefield, Ukrainian Major General Kirillo Budanov, the head of the country's Defense Intelligence Directorate, said, "It is unlikely that he will survive." If Russia loses the war, Putin will be overthrown, he said, without elaborating on what he meant by "surviving." "At present, active discussions are taking place in Russia about who will replace him," Budanov said.
Budanov also told the online military magazine that Ukrainian forces are set to recapture Kherson City on the Black Sea and other Russian-occupied territories in late November. Rumors have been swirling about Putin's health for the past several months. Rumors have been swirling about Putin's health for the past several months. He said that while Kherson, which serves as a gateway to the Crimean peninsula, was occupied by Russia a few days after the conflict began in February, there are currently 40,000 Russian elite forces.
"The most trained and capable Russian units are currently in Kherson," Budanov said. "A large part of them are from the airborne troops of the Russian Federation, Russian special operations forces, and naval infantry, so Russia has the most capable units. Those units are the group's backbone and are strengthened by mobilized personnel. Budanov also denied Russian reports that Ukraine was preparing a dirty bomb, a nuclear weapon designed to be used against Russia from radioactive waste.
Nina, 72, a resident, carries wooden debris near her home, which was ruined a month earlier by Russian shelling in Central Sloviansk. "Ukraine has never produced a device like this in its history," he said. "It never planned, it doesn't plan, and it doesn't plan to do anything like that. Unlike the Russian Federation, as I said earlier, is a terrorist state, and they are likely to do anything."