Alex Konanykhin left Russia in 1992 and seven years later became the first Russian citizen to be granted political asylum in the United States from post-Soviet Russia.
Earlier this month, the businessman announced via social media he is offering a reward of $1 million for the arrest of Putin.
He told Express.co.uk his motives for doing this were because he does not want to be “confused for most Russians who either actively supported or are silently complicit in Putin’s war against Ukraine”.
Mr Konanykhin’s social media post received millions of likes and huge media attention.
The Russian defector has been warning of the dangers of the Putin regime for many years and in 2014 started a petition calling on the White House to designate Russia as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.
However, he believes that there is “not a chance” that Putin will succeed in Ukraine.
It has now been almost three weeks since Russian forces first invaded Ukraine and the latest figures show that at least 636 civilians have so far been killed.
Russian troops are reportedly closing in on Ukraine’s capital but have been stalled for a number of days – partly due to Ukraine’s stiff resistance.
There are also reports that Russia has already used almost its entire army.
Mr Konanykhin said that it is clear that the war is already a “disaster” and a “lost war”.
He added that “even if by some miracle he manages to take Kyiv -an unlikely scenario- or kills Zelensky, it’s not going to help him get to his objectives.”
He said that this is because patriotic Ukrainians will not give up fighting at the loss of the president or of the capital and will continue to kill Russian troops “at a pace at which Putin cannot possibly afford”, causing the war to “grind to a stop”.
Mr Konanykhin continued: “I look at the available scenarios and I just don’t see any good scenario for Putin.
“He could not de-escalate – de-escalating would mean admitting his defeat. Admitting his defeat is a weakness.
“It would put him in mortal danger domestically. If he is seen as a loser, instead of a defining leader who makes the world tremble, he is likely to lose power.”
Mr Konanykhin described Putin as a “cowardly” person.
He added that the only other option for Putin is escalating “but he cannot throw in more troops in Ukraine because he’s already used pretty much his entire army.”
Mr Konanykhin also noted that there can be no general mobilisation in Russia because Putin denies that there is a war and Russians can get up to 15 years in prison for spreading what the Kremlin describes as “fake” news about what is going on in Ukraine.
He said: “Putin’s only option is to accelerate it to a nuclear war by starting to use tactical nuclear weapons.”