VLADIMIR Putin has four glaring vulnerabilities that could ultimately lead to his downfall, an ex-military intelligence officer has revealed.

Security expert David H. Carstens has highlighted the dictator’s “Achilles’ heel,” which has led Russia down a path to potentially experience the highest number of casualties this year since the conflict began.

He even claimed his weaknesses could see him face the same grisly fate as Adolf Hitler.

Putin arrogantly assumed he could sweep in and seize Kyiv in a matter of days after ordering his troops over the border into Ukraine.

But more than three years on, the red-faced despot has suffered staggering losses on the battlefield.

More than 10,000 tanks, 22,000 armored vehicles, 26,000 artillery systems, and over 700 aircrafts have been destroyed, officials estimate.

And the casualty numbers are far grimmer.

According to Western officials, Russian forces have suffered over 900,000 casualties, with 250,000 fatalities, since Putin initiated his unauthorized war.

Carstens, a US Army veteran with over three decades of service, noted that Putin continues to advance the conflict regardless of these figures, as he “feels no substantial pressure” to negotiate a peace agreement.

He told The Sun: “Russia believes it is negotiating from a position of strength. And this is strange because Russia has had some staggering losses in the last four months. 

“The Ministry of Defense from the United Kingdom has estimated 160,000 casualties from Russia in the first four months of 2025.

“So this would be – well, this would put Russia on track to have the highest number of casualties this year than in any other year since the war started.

“But Russia is continuing to press on. Putin is feeling no real pressure to come to the negotiating table. 

“We just saw this. And quite frankly, I believe Putin is feeling emboldened by the lack of long-term US commitment to Ukraine.

“And what he sees are some cracks in the European Union’s outlook on Ukraine.”

Carstens, who managed the army’s first intelligence operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, said 2025 is on course to be the deadliest year of the war for Putin.

He believes the dictator has four crucial vulnerabilities that could see his demise.

The ex-commander said: “2025 could be the costliest year of the war for Russia in terms of casualties, look, troops are not a limitless resource. So that’s, shall we say, risk number one for Putin. 

“Number two is despite Russia’s ability to suffer, the fact that the economy is very fragile.

“If there is some sort of an economic shock, like a massive drop in fuel prices or the loss of a strategic trade partner, I think the system could destabilize.

“Risk or threat to Putin number three is that Putin depends on this very small inner circle.

“His security services, the FSB, his oligarchs, some loyalist military commanders.

“If there are continued war failures, if there is, you know, continued use of soldiers, you know, en masse, rushing Ukrainian defenses, creating these high casualty events, lack of confidence will rise, and this could fracture the inner circle.”

Carstens warned Putin could face the same fall from power as Hitler and end up dead like the Nazi dictator.

“I’ve got to reach into history for the threat to Putin number four. I just don’t think Putin has read his history when it comes to overreach,” he added.

“So Russia is incredibly overextended in Ukraine.

“And it is this exact same type of overreach that ultimately defeated Hitler in his conquest of Europe.

“So I think Putin has fallen into the same demise, is getting mired down in a conflict he cannot sustain, and that as well is part of his Achilles’ heel.”

But Carstens argued that “nobody knows how to suffer better than Russia”, and expects Europe and the US to impose more crippling sanctions if Moscow doesn’t sign a ceasefire agreement.

He said: “After three years of war, the Russian GDP is about 10 to 12 per cent below pre-invasion trends.

“Personal disposable income is 20 to 25 per cent below where it would have been without the conflict.

“And when you combine the rate of inflation with the domestic interest rates in Russia, which are about 20 per cent, as well as all the other factors, loss of foreign exchange reserve, bankruptcies on the rise in domestic businesses, drop in real estate prices, increasing difficulties with interbank transactions – Russia’s economy looks extremely weak.

“The problem is that Russia is still getting money through the back door, and the back door is Asia.

“Quite frankly, China makes much of what Russia needs, and they can buy much of what Russia sells. So China has effectively stopped the bleeding that the sanctions were imposed to cause.

“Kazakhstan is an example. Kazakhstan ships hundreds of millions of US dollars of electronic hardware to Russia. So there’s another pipeline.”