There are renewed rumors swirling about Vladimir Putin’s health (HT: Allan R. Bevere). New video shows him apparently gripping his desk tightly while sitting behind it, which the Daily Mail assessed thus:
There is also video that the Daily Mail says shows "Putin looks unsteady in Easter church service footage showing him biting lip and fidgeting as health rumours grow and war continues to go badly." The Mail also recounts:
Vladimir Putin's five medically-related disappearances
November 2012: Business trips and long-distance flights of the president are canceled, some of Putin's meetings shown by the Kremlin turn out to be 'canned food'
March 5 – 15, 2015: Putin does not appear in public, all meetings are 'canned' - in other words pre-recorded events were shown with the pretence they were in real time
August 9-16, 2017: The President, with journalists, visits Abkhazia and Sochi, and then for a week the Kremlin publishes only 'canned food'
February 2018: In the midst of an election campaign, the president cancels public events. Peskov admits that the head of state 'had a cold'
September 13-29, 2021: Putin goes into 'self-isolation', all events are held via video link
Observers said Putin's actions are consistent with someone suffering from Parkinson's disease, which causes tremors, slow movement and stiffness.
And there is this tweet that purports to show Putin unsteady on his feet and walking somewhat irregularly.
Here, though, are two photos of Vlad taken a year apart. I merged them into one side-by-side shot. The left photo is from an NBC News report from April 2021. The right photo is from now, April 2022, released by the Russian government. Do you see a difference? I do not strongly consider the difference in Putin’s pallor to be very significant because the lighting difference for the photos may have played a major part in that. However, months before now there was speculation that Putin was suffering from a chronic illness that made his face swell, which these (and other photos I saw) seem to show. And Newsweek repeats the rumor is that he is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.
Or it may be simply nothing much more than what former CIA Director John Brennan told MSNBC three days ago, “Video of Putin clutching table ‘shows that he’s a man that has quite a bit of stress’.” Yes, that is a ‘well, duh,’ statement, but that really might be all there is to it. Besides, the Russian (dis)info agencies all say Putin is well, is not taking meds or drugs, and is working hard etc. etc. etc.
