Vladimir Putin’s inner circle “secretly hate” him and the dictator will be toppled in a “palace coup” within the next year.

This comes from lawyer Ilya Remeslo - earlier a staunch backer of the invasion of Ukraine, and seen as linked to the Russian security services.

He is taunting Putin, 73, to arrest him by saying he wants to be a leader of a new Russia after a “revolution” and “have some role in the future in ensuring the transfer of power”.

Remeslo’s incendiary comments came in an extraordinary interview with prominent media personality Ksenia Sobchak, who is known as Putin’s ‘goddaughter’.

Warring Russia is beset by problems and the “root cause” is Putin — “the man at the very top, the one who runs it all,” he said.

“It's Vladimir Putin. It's obvious. Everyone knows it.”

He announced: “I am the person who knows how to fight Vladimir Putin, who knows the system's weaknesses, how to interact with it, and how to lure people out of it.”

Unlike tragic opposition leader Alexei Navalny - another lawyer widely seen as having been murdered in a Russian hellhole prison - Remeslo, 42, said he comes from within the system.

“I'm using this interview to appeal to those who are in this system, who haven't yet decided whether to leave it or not,” he said.

“Guys, don't be afraid of anything, we will definitely win, and nothing will happen to you. And believe me, we only have a little time left to endure, and everything will work out for us….

“My plan is to create a platform and attract those who are afraid to speak out against Vladimir Putin.

“I want to become a representative of this mass of people, which amounts to tens of millions.”

Earlier a dedicated propagandist for Putin, Remeslo forecast: “I'm deeply convinced that….by the end of 2026 - beginning of 2027, we will experience profound changes…..the collapse of the previous system, the birth of a new system.”

There would be “a palace coup, a revolution in Russia.”

But it would not be a military putsch.

“It will be something very quiet. You know, like what happened in 1953 [when Stalin died and was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev].

“We'll wake up in a different country,” he said.

Insiders in the government and presidential administration “all secretly hate Putin.

“They simply hate him because he took everything away from them.

“They can't enjoy the benefits they once enjoyed.

“Everything there is essentially already decided.

“So, when these contradictions within the system accumulate to such a point…"

Sobchak asked who the new Russian leader would be under his scenario which contradicts the view that Putin has such an iron grip on Russia that he is impregnable.

“Listen, if I name him, they'll arrest him tomorrow,” said Remeslo.

But he gave three names hinting that one was the man he tipped to take over.

One is the existing prime minister, the dullard technocrat Mikhail Mishustin, 60, known for obediently carrying out Putin’s orders.

The second was Maxim Reshetnikov, 46, Minister for Economic Development and former Perm region governor, seen as a moderniser who has steered Russia through sanctions caused by Putin’s war.

He recently warned that the state’s “reserves have largely been used up”.

The third is Putin’s former bodyguard and the man who once saved him from an aggressive down bear, Col-Gen Alexei Dyumin, 53, now a top Kremlin aide and secretary of the State Council.

Putin has long been seen as grooming him for tsardom yet many believe the despot has no intention of voluntarily ceding power.

The new post-Putin Russia would be “right-wing”, with a “strong economy, one in which businesses pay few taxes but also thrive”.

It would be “open to foreign investment.”

Remeslo first came out against Putin in March branding him a war criminal, liar, and thief.

The lawyer afterwards was admitted to a psychiatric clinic in what appeared to be an act of Soviet-style repression.

But he was discharged and has renewed his fierce attack.

One theory is that Remeslo has backers in the security services who approve his attack on Putin.

Once a vitriolic foe of Navalny, he now says "no one deserves to die in the conditions he did, in that horrible prison” and that he “feels guilty” about his harassment of the Putin foe.