A PUTIN spin doctor who later became one of the tyrant's biggest critics has died in Moscow.
Gleb Pavlovsky, 71, had previously warned against the war and even questioned the dictator’s state of mind.
He was reported to have suffered a stroke ten days ago, and died on Sunday “after a long and serious illness".
The ex-Kremlin adviser died in a hospice following treatment in Moscow’s Botkin hospital.
Pavlovsky was fired in 2011 after he warned against power-hungry Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin for a third term.
He told how Putin has changed and questioned his sanity.
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On the invasion of Ukraine, Pavlovsky said: "The previous Putin would not have done this.
“He was a very sane-thinking person.
“But this has all vanished now.
“He has an obsession about Ukraine that he didn't previously have.
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“He is reacting now to the pictures in his own head.”
Pavlovsky switched from Kremlin insider and implementer of Putin’s plans to a staunch critic.
In 2012, he participated in the opposition "March of Millions" on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow.
He dismissed elections held in Russia in 2021 as the “most shameful” in the country’s history.
He warned in advance of the war that it would be a terrible mistake and a "great blow" for Russia.
Two months before Putin’s invasion, he said: “Ukraine is a bad place for a war… It will be a people’s war on [Kyiv's] part.”
On the day it was declared he said: “We cannot win it [this war].”
Later, expressing the price paid by Russians for Putin’s mistake, he said: “We absolutely do not need additional territories that need to be maintained in a police regime, on the one hand, and fed, on the other.”
Putin had “a desire to drown everything in general madness”.
Earlier Putin “was inclined then to discuss things with advisers and he was more open to alternative opinions”.
But lately Putin's “only contact with the world is through his inner circle.
“He can't stand it if any of them have their own stance. For him, this would be a catastrophe”.
This follows a series of deaths of Putin critics and oligarchs who have mysteriously died since Vlad's invasion.
On February 15, a Russian defence official Marina Yankina fell to her death after tumbling out of a window in a high-rise building.
The 58-year-old was said to have left documents on the balcony before plunging 160ft to her death.
And in December 2022, a wealthy Putin critic was found dead after a suspicious fall during his birthday trip to India.
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The multi-millionaire Pavel Antov, who called the Ukraine invasion "terror", fell from a hotel window.
Over ten rich Russian oligarchs and critics of Vlad have been found dead in mysterious circumstances since he unleashed his troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
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