Reported by
Security measures of unprecedented severity have been instituted in the Kremlin in recent weeks as Russian President Vladimir Putin anticipates a possible coup or assassination attempt.
Those and other sensitive details are described in a report compiled by an intelligence agency of an EU country.
Reporters from Important Stories, a storied Russian investigative outlet and longtime OCCRP partner, were provided the document by a government source close to the agency and have independently corroborated several of its claims.
The report describes “high alert” in the Kremlin “since the beginning of March 2026” about “the risk of a plot or coup attempt against the Russian president.”
“In particular,” it reads, “[Putin] fears the use of drones for a possible assassination attempt by members of the Russian political elite.”
The report names Sergei Shoigu, former Defense Minister and current Secretary of the Security Council, as a “potential destabilizing actor.”
It also describes a tense meeting, convened by Putin in the wake of the killing of a lieutenant general in Moscow on December 22, 2025, in which top security officials traded blame for the failure to prevent such attacks.
The document does not specify how a European intelligence agency would have obtained such information, but it would represent a remarkable level of access to highly sensitive top-level discussions.
Important Stories have published the text of the document in full despite its anonymous sourcing, citing the public interest and independent corroboration of several details.
“This is one of the most important pieces of news about Russia in recent times,” wrote Roman Anin, the outlet’s publisher, in an accompanying column. “We are witnessing the transition of the Russian regime into a fundamentally different state.”
Staffers working near Putin are no longer allowed to use mobile phones or take public transport, the report says, part of a raft of extreme new security measures implemented by the Federal Protective Service (FSO), the agency that protects Russia’s top officials. “Surveillance systems have been installed in the homes of cooks, photographers, and bodyguards,” the document reads.
In addition, Putin and his family have stopped visiting their residences in the Moscow region, and the president has made no appearances at military sites this year.
As reported by Important Stories, some of the information in the report was independently corroborated. For example, a former FSB officer told reporters earlier this year that it was the FSO, not the FSB, that was responsible for recent large-scale internet shutdowns in Moscow. The same claim is made in the intelligence document.
A current FSB officer told reporters that his unit was having trouble obtaining wiretapping authorization for criminal investigations because “all the equipment has been redirected to monitor the government and other state bodies.”
Amid setbacks in Russia’s grinding war on Ukraine and mounting economic problems, other signs of fear and tension have spilled into the public eye. For the first time in years, the upcoming Victory Day parade in the heart of Moscow will not include any heavy military vehicles, a security decision the Kremlin attributed to Ukrainian drone strikes.
The May 9 celebration — the centerpiece of Putin’s effort to recast his invasion of Ukraine as a continuation of the Soviet war against Nazism — will also be attended by an unusually low number of high-level foreign dignitaries.
An unusual level of discontent has also recently appeared in social media, with Russians voicing their outrage at recent blocking of mobile internet services and rising prices.
