A former Russian security officer has given rare insight into President Vladimir Putin’s “pathological” fear for his life and his “distorted” grip on reality.

Gleb Karakulov, who defected last year, appears to be the highest-ranking intelligence official to leave since the start of the Ukraine war, The Guardian reports.

He served as a captain in the Federal Protection Service, which protects Russia’s highest-ranking officials, and his duties included providing encrypted messages to Mr Putin.

Mr Karakulov said the Russian president only respected his own life and the lives of his family members and went to great lengths to protect himself.

Extreme safety measures included travelling via a secret train network which “cannot be tracked on any information resource. It’s done for stealth purposes”, he said.

Mr Putin lived in heavily guarded “bunkers”, had identical offices in different cities – using fake motorcades as decoys – and demanded all his food be inspected.

Since the coronavirus pandemic he had become so fearful of the virus that he continues to adhere to strict quarantine measures.

Staff who work in the same room must undergo a two-week quarantine, which strictly limits the number of people who interact him.

This serves to further isolate Mr Putin from the outside world.

Mr Karakulov said Mr Putin did not use a mobile phone or the internet but “only receives information from his closest circle, which means that he lives in an information vacuum”.

“Our president has lost touch with the world,” he said.

“He has been living in an information cocoon for the past couple of years, spending most of his time in his residences, which the media very fittingly call bunkers.

“He is pathologically afraid for his life.

“He surrounds himself with an impenetrable barrier of quarantines and an information vacuum.

“He only values his own life and the lives of his family and friends.”

He said the Russian president had “shut himself off from the world”.

“His take on reality has become distorted.”

Mr Karakulov estimated he had travelled on more than 180 trips with top officials.

He said Mr Putin travelled with firefighters, food testers and other engineers who “worship him in every way”.

The interview was published by the Dossier Centre, a Russian investigative journalism project founded by Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch.