The spy, identified as Artem Zhichenko, spoke to Yahoo News in early October about an article published Thursday about the “terrible situation” caused by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine that began in late February. “It’s the worst scenario that I could imagine even in my mind, and it was not only because my relatives live there, but also because of the huge number of innocent victims,” Zinchenko said. Zinchenko’s defection to Estonia was actually a comeback for the Russian spy after he was arrested by the country in 2017 and traded to Russia in an exchange a year later, Yahoo News reported. Zinchenko said that when he arrived home in 2018, “everything had changed dramatically” and described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime as having “all aspects of totalitarianism”. Above, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears in Moscow on November 10. The reported defection of a Russian spy could be the latest embarrassment for Putin as he faces multiple defeats on the ground in Ukraine and opposition from citizens and officials in his country. Mikhail Metzel/AFP via Getty Images “You know, before and during my process, I saw that the law works much better here than in Russia,” Zinchenko told Yahoo News. “During my situation, the Estonians told me they weren’t out to destroy my life or business. This was a competition between intelligence services, they explained, and they caught me in the middle.” The loss of Zinchenko to Estonia could be the latest embarrassment for Putin as he faces several military defeats and opposition from citizens and officials at home. Recently leaked e-mails from a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) whistleblower shared with Newsweek detailed internal turmoil and infighting in the Kremlin and suggested that Russia would soon “descend into an abyss of terror” as war fatigue sets in. On the ground in Ukraine, Putin recently saw what experts believed was a major political blow for the Russian president when the Kremlin announced its withdrawal from the city of Kherson. Kherson was the only regional capital Russia managed to capture in the Ukraine war, and Putin’s loss of the city is particularly significant because it is in one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it would annex in late September. The plight of the Russian army in the war is only likely to worsen during the winter. Sean Spoonts, a U.S. Navy veteran and editor-in-chief of the Special Operations Forces Report (SOFREP), told Newsweek that issues Russian soldiers could face in Ukraine include exposure-related deaths, keeping the colder months and ensuring adequate supplies for troops already reportedly facing equipment shortages. “All the problems that Russia had at the beginning of this war in February — they’re going to have those problems again. And they’re not prepared for it,” Spoonts said. “They weren’t prepared to equip a summer army. A winter army is even more difficult.” Newsweek has reached out to the Kremlin for comment.
