A SINGLE Kremlin bigwig stood up to Russian president Vladimir Putin on the second day of the war with Ukraine.
An extraordinary account has emerged of one of mad Vlad’s closest allies telling the dictator he was willing to be “arrested or shot” for his defiance.
The aide, Dmitri Kozak, refused to demand Ukraine’s surrender on the second day of the war.
Kozak, 66, was Putin’s deputy chief of staff and had been close to the president for three decades before taking a stand against the despot.
Putin told his deputy chief of staff to demand Ukraine‘s immediate surrender, a report from the New York Times revealed.
That’s when Kozak, who has Ukrainian roots, took his stand, according to three sources close to the aide.
The report said: “Kozak declined, insisting that he did not know what the Russian leader was trying to accomplish with his invasion.”
As the call grew “heated”, the 66-year-old told Putin “that he was ready to be arrested or shot for his refusal”.
Later, the staffer found out the call had been on speakerphone “turning the senior officials in the president’s office into witnesses to a rare moment of insubordination”, the report said.
Kozak was long-known to have been the only Kremlin insider brave enough to risk tyrant Putin’s wrath by arguing against the invasion and war.
Three days before the war began, he gave a 40-minute speech to the Russian security council, forecasting the dire consequences of the conflict.
Unlike other contributions at this session, his anti-war comments were not broadcast.
The aide had almost become stand-in Russian president from 2008-12, but the job went instead to another crony, Dmitry Medvedev.
Kozak quit in September after being side-lined by his ex-pal Putin over several years.
The defiant ex-aide is seen to represent other officials and business figures with anti-war sentiments who fear making their opposition public.
Aleksei Venediktov, a prominent Russian journalist said: “Dmitri [Kozak] is gone, but the mood is the same.
“He is important as a marker.”
Another source said that Kozak’s fears over the war have “have been borne out with terrifying accuracy”.
Yet the ex-official and long-time Putin ally has not publicly spoken out and refused to be interviewed for the New York Times article.
While still working at the Kremlin, Kozak sought to mediate with Ukraine and repeatedly told Putin that the war was a mistake, at one point penning a memo.
He warned Putin that the invasion of Ukraine would trigger Sweden and Finland to join NATO, a fear which became real.
He also urged Putin to make liberalising reforms, but his efforts were in vain.
One source said Kozak believed he was “working in the service of the state, and not in Putin’s personal interests”.
This comes as European leaders meet to discuss using €200 billion of Kremlin loot to bolster Ukraine’s war chest.
