Russia mutiny: Vladimir Putin will be deposed in six months says former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind

Vladimir Putin could be forced out of the Kremlin in a matter of just months, former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind said.

Malcolm Rifkind

Sir Malcolm said the Russian President's "lack of real leadership has totally humiliated himself" after the attempted coup by the Wagner group of mercenaries.

The former Conservative minister said that the events of the last 48 hours had proven Putin is no longer the strong figures he has presented himself as to the Russian people.

Who is the Wagner Group?

He suggested that the damage done over the weekend could see him ousted from power.

He told GB News: "The real issue is whether Putin's authority has been totally destroyed. It was already on the slide because of the failures in the Ukraine war.

"What was extraordinary yesterday, when he made his great speech in the Kremlin, is that he compared what was happening to 1917 and why? Because two years later the Tsar was overthrown.

"[It was] as if he was the Tsar and in a sense predicting his own demise."

Speculating on how Putin's future would now play out, Sir Malcolm said: "Remember, after the Cuban missile crisis it was a year after the Soviets had failed that Khrushchev was just quietly removed by his own colleagues in the Politburo and sent off to his Dachas to retire.

"Now at some stage, and these things tend to accelerate once they begin, at some stage a group of the most senior Russians around Putin - it's not going to be a popular uprising, it's not going to be a military coup - a mixture of some generals, FSB intelligence agency people, some of the oligarchs will say 'comrade Vladimir, we think perhaps it's time for you to retire to your Dachas'."

He added: "If you're one man, it doesn't matter how many people you've got protecting you, once they stop wanting to protect you there's nothing you can do about it."