A whistleblower within Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) branded Russian President Vladimir Putin a narcissist in an email shared with Newsweek.
The email, dated March 5, paints a picture of how the Russian leader is viewed by some at the FSB. It is the second dispatch sent by the agent, dubbed the Wind of Change, to Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian human rights activist who runs the anti-corruption website Gulagu.net, and is now exiled in France.
The FSB agent writes regular dispatches to Osechkin, revealing the anger and discontent inside the service over the war that began when Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Igor Sushko, the executive director of the Wind of Change Research Group, a Washington-based non-profit organization, has been translating the correspondence from Russian to English since it began. He has shared all the emails in full with Newsweek.
The whistleblower's first letter, written on March 4, was analyzed by Christo Grozev, an expert on the FSB. He said on March 6 that he had shown it "to two actual (current or former) FSB contacts" who had "no doubt it was written by a colleague."
"Here's the picture with regards to Putin & FSB," the Wind of Change began in the March 5 email. "On the one hand, he is supported and respected, but if you slightly dig deeper, it's a collective feeling for the image, thanks to which [the] FSB has the power that it really has."
There is "one unforgettable rule" in the FSB, the agent wrote.
"To most,...
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