# Quote — John Sweeney, Killer in the Kremlin

> Paranoia is destroying the Russian Army from within. Vladimir Putin is a prisoner in his own high castle, just like Stalin. His terror of revealing his hand too early, and it being leaked to the Americans, was so great that he kept back his true invasion plans for and from the army until the day before the invasion. So the Russian general staff have had to make up the war as they go along – and the result has been disastrous. Generals have been appointed on the basis of their fealty to the Kremlin, not their courage, not their competence.

- Author: [John Sweeney](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-sweeney.md)
- Book: [Killer in the Kremlin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-sweeney/killer-in-the-kremlin.md)
- Page: 12
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Sweeney_(journalist)#Killer_in_the_Kremlin_(2022)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-sweeney/killer-in-the-kremlin/paranoia-is-destroying

## More from this book

> Squealer in Animal Farm but without the charm.

p. 268 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-sweeney/killer-in-the-kremlin/squealer-in-animal.md)

> The Putin I had challenged in 2014 was a different man, subtle, supple, willing to engage with a difficult BBC reporter, albeit only to lie so calmly. The Putin of 2022 was hyper-aggressive. But the reason I felt fear was something else. The Putin I had met in 2014 looked like a ferret or a reptile, thin-faced, lean. The 2022 Putin looks like a hamster, his cheeks stuffed, unhealthy. He looks like a man on steroids and that made me full of fear.

p. 260 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-sweeney/killer-in-the-kremlin/the-putin-i-had.md)

> He was shot in the back of the back several times one hundred metres or so from the walls of the Kremlin, one of the most closely CCTV-filmed areas on earth. The official narrative was that a bin lorry obscured the Kremlin's cameras from capturing the killer or killers. Attentive readers will have already got it, but for the avoidance of any doubt the official narrative is a load of old hogwash. In my four decades-plus of reporting, I have never been detained by police officers more often than outside the Kremlin. You cannot move five yards without a cop demanding to see your passport. The idea that Nemtsov was assassinated but that none of the Kremlin's cameras captured critical evidence is absurd.

p. 174 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-sweeney/killer-in-the-kremlin/he-was-shot.md)