A Russian senator and widow of the law professor who created Vladimir Putin as a politician has questioned the Russian dictator’s sanity.
Lyudmila Narusova, 71, has known the Kremlin president since he was a backroom nonentity working for her husband Anatoly Sobchak, then pro-Western mayor of St Petersburg.
Now the sole opposition figure in Russia’s upper house of parliament, she has launched a blistering critique of Putin, accusing him of inflicting ‘mass psychosis’ on the population.
For decades, Narusova saw Putin as a family friend, but now questions his sanity as he plunges the country into mass repressions and war.
‘It appeared to me three years ago that he had a sane perception of reality,’ she said.
‘But many things have changed after these three years, and I never got to make sure of this myself.’
She is convinced he is addicted to power and will seek to cling on despite his age and suspected health problems – dismissing rumours in Moscow that he plans to hand over the Kremlin to a trusted lieutenant.
Putin will stand for a new six year team making him president until 2030, the year when he will turn 78, she told Forbes Russia.
Legally he could then seek yet another term, expiring when he was 84 but effectively making him ruler for life.
Narusova revealed the Russian elite is awash with people who disapprove of Putin – but are too scared to act against him.
‘I’m the only one who votes [against him],’ she told Novaya Gazeta Europe independent newspaper.‘
‘But there are enough people who think the same as me.
‘It’s just that they are afraid to speak it out loud.
Putin’s biggest cheerleaders back him at Red Square rallies but ‘this does not mean that they actually sincerely support what’s going on’, she said.
