Vladimir Putin could face the same ignominious end as Adolf Hitler after the mad dictator holed up in a bunker, an exiled critic claims.
Prominent Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky told The Sun how the dictator’s growing isolation has put him on the path to a grim and lonely death.
The reclusive Russian leader is said to have been hiding in secret hideouts for several weeks due to fears of a coup.
Now “physically afraid for his life”, Putin lives in fear of Ukrainian drone strikes or being “eaten alive” by the fractious opposition.
Khodorkovsky, an exiled Russian businessman who spent 10 years in a Siberian prison after clashing with Putin, has emerged as a leading figure in active opposition circles outside Russia.
In an interview from his London office, he told The Sun: “Putin has done a lot to create the impression that he is like Hitler.
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“The way he conducted military operations against Ukraine was conducted in a way that drew comparisons to Hitler’s Germany.”
The Russian dictator assumed he could capture Kiev in a matter of days after ordering his troops to the Ukrainian border in 2022.
But five years later, Russia continues to suffer brutal defeats on the battlefield, with approximately 1.2 million Russian soldiers killed, wounded or missing.
The war has also hit Russia’s economy, with defense costs rising to 15.5 trillion rubles (£144 billion) by 2025, while food prices have increased by 18.6 per cent in just two years.
Putin, bent on defeating Ukraine despite a disastrous defeat, has become isolated.
And amid falling popularity, Khodorkovsky said the dictator now faces a “dangerous” situation.
In a major warning sign for the Kremlin leader, only 71 percent of Russians trust their president, according to state-affiliated polling institute FOM.
Analysts say the five percent drop is the biggest drop in the dictator’s popularity ratings since 2019.
Khodorkovsky said: “Putin’s popularity rating is falling.
“He will be worried about this because his power rests on two pillars – publicity which creates popularity for him and intelligence services.
“If the propaganda machine fails, it will create a very dangerous situation. It will make Putin’s power dependent only on his security and intelligence services.”
“And in that case they might eat him alive.”
It comes as a leaked report from a European intelligence agency claims Putin’s personal security has been dramatically increased.
The report said that as early as March 2026, “the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself are concerned about the potential leak of sensitive information, as well as the risk of a conspiracy or coup attempt targeting the Russian president”.
“He is particularly wary of the use of drones for potential assassination attempts by members of the Russian political elite.”
After being captured I built Hitler’s bunker
by alex west
A former Nazi captive, aged 100, has told how he was forced to dig up Adolf Hitler’s bunker.
Chase Black was transported by lorry to Germany in 1944 as part of the forced labor campaign known as Organization Todt.
At the age of 19, he was sent by the Reich Chancellery in Berlin to dig a deep pit by hand along with hundreds of workers, German soldiers, and others.
They did not learn until the end of the war that it was the site of Hitler’s bunker, where he had killed himself along with new bride Eva Braun as the Allies closed in in 1945.
Chase, of Stoke Row, Oxon, said: “We didn’t know what it was for.
“We were just digging a hole and we didn’t know we were protecting Hitler.
“It was only after the war that we found out.”
Chase said: “We were forced into labor.
“It was sandy and we just had a wheelbarrow and a shovel and worked by hand.
“It was quite deep – as a person in the pit you looked up and up.”
Later, Chase was deployed to Italy, where he transported lumber.
He escaped the Nazis by joining Polish resistance fighters until the end of the war.
(Unable to return to Soviet-run Poland after 1945, he worked for 29 years in a car factory in Cowley, Oxford.
He was married to June for 72 years and had four children.
Chase is recounting his experiences as part of a history project and to keep alive the memory and legacy of Polish soldiers and refugees held in Oxfordshire resettlement camps after the war.
The cowardly dictator is now spending several weeks in an underground bunker in the Krasnodar Territory.
Politicians and activists have long drawn comparisons between Putin and Hitler.
In a March interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “We know how it will end for Hitler. We understand how it will end for Putin.”
“I am sure a tragic end awaits their country,” he said.
This prediction was also made by Oleksiy Danilov, former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
Danilov previously said: “Putin is not much different from Hitler – he is just a modern Hitler.
“From 1941 to 1945, Germany was at war with almost the entire world. In May 1945, it was left in ruins. The same will happen to Russia. They are doomed to this.”
But Khodorkovsky made another comparison with former Russian dictator Joseph Stalin.
He said: “Stalin ended his life in a pile of his own vomit because no one dared to go near him when he collapsed.
“I think that’s the path Putin is on now, it’s a direct path to that kind of end to his life.”
Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist from 1924 until his death in 1953.
Millions of Russians – considered political enemies – were executed and imprisoned by the totalitarian state.
Khodorkovsky said: “The scale of Putin’s repression is about 100 times less than Stalin’s.
“However the propaganda creates the impression that it has very similar effects on Putin’s elite as it had on Stalin’s elite.”
Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 20,000 people have been detained for speaking out against the conflict.
Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest manWith a reported net worth of $15 billion (£11 billion)).
He was arrested in 2003 after challenging Putin by advocating democratic reforms.
after spend a decade in jail Khodorkovsky went into exile in Britain.
In October 2025, the Russian government declared Khodorkovsky a “terrorist”.
The Kremlin accused its Russia anti-war committee – founded in 2022 by exiles and activists – of plotting a violent coup.
Khodorkovsky Said: “I told Putin face to face that the system he has created is very difficult for the Russian economy.
“The system didn’t work because you couldn’t work for that system if you didn’t take money or bribes.
“If you take money or bribe you have to carry out any order, any instruction otherwise you will find yourself in jail.”
