Zelensky says Putin's inner circle will kill him, but is he right?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has allegedly predicted that Vladimir Putin will eventually be killed by those closest to him according to remarks he made in a recently released documentary.

The comments were made during an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Komarov for his new documentary titled 'A Year', which examined the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was released to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the war. 

"There will certainly be a moment when the fragility of Putin's regime is felt in Russia," Zelensky told Komarov in the documentary according to a Newsweek translation. 

"Then carnivores will eat the carnivore,” he added, though The Telegraph gave the more interesting translation of: “Predators will devour a predator.”

“They will recall the words of Komarov, of Zelenskyy,” the Ukranian President added in reference to what was being said in the documentary. “They will remember. They will find a reason to kill the killer.”

Zelensky predicted that the attempt would be a success, saying “Will it work? Yes.” But he didn’t make a prediction about how long it would take for Putin’s inner circle to turn on him, choosing rather to just say, “When? I don't know."

While most of the free world would be happy to see Putin offed in the wake of his disastrous invasion of Ukraine, it’s important to remember that these comments could be part of Ukraine's larger information war campaign aimed at destabilizing Putin’s regime. 

All throughout the last year of the war, Ukrainian officials have made several public comments aimed at sowing tension in Russia’s highest ranks.

In January, the Head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate Kyrylo Budanov claimed Putin was dealing with an ongoing illness and that his death would happen “very fast.” 

“We think it's cancer,” Budanov told ABC News’ Britt Clennett. "We know it from human sources that are close to Putin,” before adding that he expected one of Putin’s allies to be chosen as a replacement after the Russian President’s death. 

In February, Budanov also stated that several members of Putin’s inner circle had switched sides and were spying for Ukraine in a bid to help themselves survive any potential fallout from Russia’s defeat in the war.

“Since the situation in the Russian Federation is actually getting worse every day, it's getting easier every day to find people willing to cooperate,” Budanov said.

From stories about Russian constricts rioting to leaked documents that show Russia’s plans to take over Belarus, Ukraine has done a very good job of controlling the narrative of the war and Zelensky’s latest comments could be another great example. 

While analyzing such a scenario is difficult, there have been some experts that have tried to outline scenarios where Putin’s closest allies would choose to remove him from power by violent means. 

In September 2022, Professor Peter Duncan—a lecturer of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies at the University of London—told The Mirror that he believed Putin’s underlings would remove him from power and kill him if he decided to use nuclear weapons. 

"I still think that if Putin did begin to use nuclear weapons—or if he did actually tell Shoigu and Gerasimov to use nuclear weapons… it's entirely likely that [they] would refuse and then they would have to move against Putin and kill him,” Duncan said. 

But killing Putin might not make a difference according to Stephen Kinzer of Politico, who wrote in March 2022: “Removing Putin would not alter Russia’s determination never to tolerate an enemy army on another of its borders.”