Mark Hollingsworth

Is this the man who will one day take over from Putin?

The chilling prospect of Nikolai Patrushev succeeding Putin is very real

Russian president Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Secretary of Russia's Security Council Nikolai Patrushev (Credit: Getty images)
  • Comments

Boris Ratnikov, a former KGB officer and retired chief advisor to Russia’s security service, gave a remarkable interview back in 2016. Ratnikov, who died in 2020, claimed his boss had penetrated and read the mind of Madeleine Albright while she was US Secretary of State in the mid-1990s.

Ratnikov said his superior officer used a photograph to penetrate Albright’s subconscious where he discovered her secret thoughts about the priority of removing Siberia and the Far East from Russian territory.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Written by
Mark Hollingsworth

Mark Hollingsworth is the author of ‘Londongrad – From Russia with Cash’. His new book, ‘Agents of Influence – How the KGB Subverted Western Democracies’, will be published by Oneworld this April.

Topics in this article

Read next

Trending

Rod Liddle

Does no one want the Red Wall voters?

Rod Liddle
From the magazine
There was outrage in some sections of the Labour party today after its leader, Sir Keir Starmer, praised Satan. Writing in the Mephistophelian Clarion, a publication with a high proportion of readers who are lycanthropes, vampires, imps, goblins and daemons, Sir Keir said that the ‘Prince of Darkness’ had sometimes been ‘mis-understood’ by the left.

Also in Politics

Also by Mark Hollingsworth

Latest

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in