Fleeing Russian man paints scathing portrait of Putin's leadership: 'A few old men are leading us to hell'

A man who has fled his home country of Russia this week delivered a scathing portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin's leadership in an interview with The Atlantic.

The man in question, a 38-year-old IT manager named Anton Shalaev, escaped from Russia this week to the Armenian capitol of Yerevan, which is one of the few places that will still allow Russians into the country.

When asked specifically about Putin's decision making during the war, Shalaev did not hesitate to slam the man who has led his homeland for more than two decades.

"A few old men and an army of zombies are leading us to hell," he said. "I say that because people around me in Russia behaved as if they had been bitten by a zombie, dragging my entire country into a dreadful war. All I saw was Russian loser husbands beating their wives, while the entire rotting house of the state system has turned my people into an army of the dead."

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To put a fine point on it, Shalaev added, "They are my enemies."

Shalaev also had some unkind words for Russian state media operations.

"Russian propaganda is a weapon, and the bastards working there are war criminals," he said. "The greatest guilt in this entire tragedy belongs to a small bunch of old men at the top: KGB officers."

Various media outlets have reported that many Russian men of military age have been trying to escape the country even since Putin called for a mobilization earlier this week to rescue his war in Ukraine.

Read the full interview at this link.