Putin still has Covid-19 fear, forces staff to quarantine for days: elite Russian defector
- Gleb Karakulov, who worked in Putin’s security detail for years before fleeing to Turkey, said ‘everyone is a little perplexed as to why this is still going on’
- He added the president only allowed staff members to work in the same room as him after a two-week isolation period
The Russian leader has been keeping himself on lockdown mode until at least late 2022, Gleb Karakulov, a former captain in the Presidential Communications Directorate of the Federal Guard Service, told the Dossier Centre for Investigative Journalism.
“We still have a self-isolating president,” Karakulov said, per the Dossier Centre. “We have to observe a strict quarantine for two weeks before any event, even those lasting 15 to 20 minutes.”
Karakulov was in charge of encrypting Putin’s communications, and travelled with him on more than 180 overseas business trips over 13 years, he told the Dossier Centre. He escaped in October while accompanying Putin on a trip to Kazakhstan, and moved to Turkey with his family – a rare case of a high-ranking intelligence officer defecting from the Russian government.
The former FSO officer said Putin only allowed staff members to work in the same room as him after a two-week quarantine period, per the Dossier Centre.