The noted absence of Vladimir Putin has revived rumors about his state of health. Several media claim that he has cancer.
How is Putin? This question, many media are asking. The state of health of the Russian head of state is at the heart of the craziest rumors, rekindled after a week of very noticeable absence.
His hand could “break that of his interlocutor”
Vladimir Poutine reappeared this Friday on television, where he had not been seen since March 5, during the visit of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who came to seek Moscow’s support in the Libyan dossier. Since then, the Russian president has postponed the scheduled meeting with his Kazakh and Belarusian counterparts, without providing any explanation. A Kazakh government source said on Wednesday that he was ill, thus raising the questions again.
The Kremlin immediately wanted to dot the i’s. “Vladimir Poutine is in very good health and he works all the time”, assured his spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that the handshake of the head of state could “break that of his interlocutor”, according to a Russian metaphor. To silence bad tongues, the presidency website even posted photos of the head of state in full swing.
Screenshot of the Kremlin website
Three years to live
Despite the strength of conviction of the Kremlin, these words have not put an end to the rumors that have agitated the blogosphere for several months. Already, in 2012, Putin had to cancel his visits abroad for several weeks, officially because of a “sports injury to the back”.
However, several reports have expressed doubts about this version. In October, an article from the American daily The New York Post has revealed that Vladimir Putin is said to be suffering from the most aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. He would have three years to live. The Russian media are talking about spinal cancer.
He was reportedly followed by a German doctor he met when he was a KGB agent in Germany decades ago. According to the author of the article, the head of state has undergone several treatments, some of them with steroids, which explains the sometimes puffy appearance of his face – which some attribute, moreover, to aesthetic botox injections. At 84, the doctor is said to have retired, not unhappy at parting with this invasive patient: “he confided in hating going to Russia. Putin’s bodyguards mistreated him constantly, ”the article read.
His illness “explains why Vladimir Poutine is in such a hurry to invade Ukraine”, even affirms the newspaper. Revelations immediately denied by the Kremlin. “That they (the people who spread these rumors, editor’s note) keep quiet, then declared Dmitry Peskov. These are empty expectations ”.
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