Putin's former speechwriter says Russian political system in 'shock' following Moscow's recent defeats in Ukraine

• Russia's political system is in "shock" after Moscow's recent defeats in Ukraine, a former Vladimir Putin aide said.
• "This is no exaggeration," Abbas Gallyamov, a political consultant and ex-speechwriter to Putin, told CNN.

Russia's entire political system is in a state of "shock" following the Kremlin's recent disastrous defeats in Vladimir Putin's war with Ukraine, the Russian president's former speechwriter said.

"The Russian political system is in real shock now — this is no exaggeration," Abbas Gallyamov, a political consultant and ex-speechwriter to Putin, told CNN in an interview published on Wednesday.

Gallyamov said that Putin's regime has long considered Ukraine as "inferior," and "they could never imagine that Ukrainians would be advancing and the Russians — the Russian troops, the invincible troops how they were viewing them — would have to retreat and not just to retreat, but to actually run away."

"This is a real shock," Gallyamov told CNN.

The former speechwriter said that "little by little the Russian public opinion got acquainted to the thought that, OK, Ukrainians are not so bad after all — they can defend themselves, they can be on the defensive."

"But nobody could expect that they would advance so rapidly, so professionally, and to make the Russians retreat," he said.

In recent days, Ukrainian forces reclaimed territory from Russian occupation in an equally stunning and lightning-fast counteroffensive in the nearly seven-month-long war.

They recaptured large swaths of territory from Russian control in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine's second-largest city.

And fleeing Russian troops reportedly left behind a bounty of weaponry and ammunition.

Since the beginning of this month, Ukrainian forces have taken back more than thousands of square miles of territory from Russian occupation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

"The whole system is in shock and what makes this situation worse is the absolutely inadequate reaction of Putin personally," Gallyamov told CNN, adding that when Putin "is in shock himself" and "doesn't know how to act," the Russian leader "is trying to show that nothing bad is happening."

"Putin's image is tarnished," his former speechwriter said.

Gallyamov said that he believes that Russian elites will begin to look for a successor to be appointed within the next few months.

"I think the next thing which is going to happen in Russian politics within the next like several months, maybe up to half a year, is the elites will start looking for a successor, and so the political process will begin around this figure," he told CNN.