A former Russian security officer who defected last year told The Guardian of Vladimir Putin's paranoid lifestyle, confirming details of a network of secret trains, identical offices in different cities and rigorous personal quarantine, followed by a capillary and sectoral security protocol.

Gleb Karakulov, who served as captain of the Federal Protective Service (FSO), a powerful body tasked with protecting Russia's highest-ranking officials, said the security measures were designed to systematically hide the Russian president's whereabouts.

Putin, reported Karakulov, is "obsessed with his life".

The officer said the security service uses the secret train because "cannot be traced on any information resource." To corroborate the thesis, the Russian investigative body Project he also told of the existence of the highly armored and anonymous train and of a secret railway network, including parallel lines and stations near Putin's residences in the Valdai national park in Novo-Ogaryovo, and near his residence in Bocharov Ruchei in the locality of Black Sea of ​​Sochi.

The Guardian also had access to the documents of the Dossier Center, an organization founded by the exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, where the credentials of the defecting officer Karakulov are confirmed, classified in the security service of the Russian personalities as an expert engineer of encrypted communications.

Karakulov was a member of the Communications Directorate's "field team," which encrypted messages from top Russian officials, and reportedly made more than 180 trips with dignitaries.

In the interview, Karakulov called Putin a “war criminal” and advised fellow officers to step forward in divulging the inconvenient information in favor of public opinion.

“Our president has lost touch with the world”, said the captain, “he has been living in an information bell for the past two years, spending most of his time in his residences. You have a pathological fear for her life. You surround yourself with an impenetrable barrier of quarantines and an information vacuum. He is only interested in his own life, that of his family and his friends'.

Karakulov then described the security framework protecting Putin made up of firefighters, food tasters and engineers who travel with Putin, mostly abroad.

Putin does not use cell phones or the internet, said Karakulov. “He receives information only from his closest circle, which means he lives with a deep information vacuum”. Putin is perpetually in quarantine and requires all staff working in the same room as him to undergo a rigorous quarantine of at least two weeks, limiting as much as possible the number of people who have personal contact with him.

Karakulov then said that Putin uses offices identical to St. Petersburg, Sochi and Novo-Ogaryovo, and that i secret services used fake motorcades and decoy planes to simulate his departure, in order to deceive foreign intelligence and confuse possible bombers.

Karakulov also described his risky flight to the West during Putin's visit to Kazakhstan. His wife and daughter secretly reached the capital, Astana. Karakulov with a ploy said that he felt unwell leaving the place of the official meetings to then join his family at the airport and board a direct flight to a western country. Today Karakulov is wanted in Russia and has been included in the database of criminal suspects of the Russian Interior Ministry.

Putin is obsessed with his life: he doesn't use his cell phone and the internet. He uses only a "top secret" train for travel