'Not an outside job': Former secret intel agent reveals how Putin could meet his end

A veteran intelligence operative examined the possibility that Russian president Vladimir Putin could be assassinated.

The former senior intelligence agent with France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) told The Daily Beast that operatives for spy services around the world are almost certainly discussing that possibility as a means to end Putin's war against Ukraine.

“The operation is on every intelligence agency’s design table,” the former operative said. “I know this because I used to plan them.”

The retired DGSE agent, who worked as elimination specialist, said the most efficient method would be poison -- and would be carried out by fellow Russians.

“The attempt will be from within the Kremlin," he said. "This is not an outside job."

Putin himself prefers poison to eliminate his own enemies, and Russia has a long history of poison plots both successful and not, but the French operative said the Kremlin's intelligence service was the last to use poison as a default method for assassination.

“All true,” he said, “but nobody does it better than the Russians.”

Of course, taking out Putin would not be easy, and a source who works at the highest levels of a Russian ministry, he fired around 1,000 staffers last month and replaced them with new attendants -- which the Frenchman said shows his paranoia.

“Putin is, of course, aware someone is coming after him,” he said. “Killing Putin is not an easy task, but Putin knows it can be done, and that’s guaranteed to scare him.”

Any hit on Putin would most likely come from someone in the president's inner circle, or perhaps an assassin who sneaks in from just outside his tightening perimeter -- but the Frenchman is certain the plan was already in the works.

“It will be an expensive job, a fortune,” the operative said. “In my experience, I’d wager an asset is already in place. There always is.”