Ex-presidential adviser: Putin skips G20 due to ‘assassination fear’

The Russian embassy has announced that Vladimir Putin will not travel to next week’s G20 summit in Jakarta, where Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will lead the delegation.

A Putin ally has explained why he believes the Russian president did not attend the meeting, despite Moscow’s silence on the matter. Sky News.

Sergei Markov, a former close adviser to Putin, said there was “a high possibility of an assassination attempt on Putin by the intelligence services of the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine.”

The former adviser wrote in Telegram that Putin’s reasons for not attending the G20 were to avoid “humiliating situations”.

Markov also said that after Kherson surrenders, other countries will pressure Russia to “surrender easily”.

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At the same time, Markov criticized Russia’s announcement regarding the withdrawal from the Ukrainian city of Kherson.

He said the zone’s surrender was Russia’s “biggest geopolitical defeat since the collapse of the Soviet Union”, accusing it of “a denial of real war and a catastrophic delay in making the necessary decisions”.

Criticism within the Kremlin has grown as officials are dissatisfied with Russia’s handling of the conflict.