More evidence of panic in Moscow's key military organisations emerged tonight with claims that two high-level officials have defected, and are revealing further details of Russian war crimes and secret operations in Ukraine.The news comes as Russian police launched a murder investigation after a military commissar in charge of enlistment for Vladimir Putin’s chaotic mobilisation campaign was found dead near his home.
But tonight senior sources in Crimea warned that Russia remained uncowed, and was preparing to authorise the use of chemical weapons as part of a new offensive which will coincide with November’s G20 summit in Bali.
A female FSB intelligence officer with operational information of Russian troops movements and a high ranking mercenary with the Putin-supporting Wagner paramilitary group are now said to have reached safe exile in France, where they have sought political asylum.
Evidence from the two defectors will both help to build up the dossier of war crimes against Vladimir Putin’s war machine and help Ukrainian forces in their counter-offensive in Donbas, said Russian human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin who revealed the defections.
The female intelligence officer has reportedly brought “serious insider information” relating to the invasion of Ukraine, counterintelligence and the Defence Ministry, while also revealing details of “corruption schemes of the FSB” - the Russian counterintelligence agency once headed by Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, the Wagner official has revealed details of the secret financing of the private army, which has recently recruited hundreds of convicted criminals still serving prison terms as part of a desperate move to bolster its ranks in Ukraine.
He also gave details of sabotage work by Wagner units in the Donbas, and confirmed Western suspicions that the organisation - led by multimillionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s chef”. is connected operationally and financially to Russia’s GRU military intelligence directorate.
Both sought asylum at the same time and had travelled in adjacent rows on the same plane, but were initially suspicious of each other, said Osechkin, 41, who last month was the subject of an FSB-linked assassination bid in France.
He added: “Both these people will testify about war crimes. I hope they will have the opportunity to cooperate with the international investigation and testify against Yevgeny Prigozhin and other persons in the Putin regime.”
In the meantime, Russian police have launched a murder investigation after the body of military commissar Lt-Col Roman Malyk, 49, was found near the fence of his home in a village in the Primorsky region of Russia.