I’m starting to see articles on non-wacky news sources saying that he does. One taped oligarch even says he has “blood cancer”. Can anyone source something dependable discussing this?
Nothing dependable.
That said, if one version of the rumor is that he needs surgery for his cancer and the other version is that he has blood cancer, then one of those has to be false. There is no surgery for blood cancer.
I should add, there were reports from good sources that Putin was in extreme quarantine during the pandemic. E.g.:
Beside that, there’s the strange video of him gripping the table (though, he could have done that on purpose to mess with people) and he became rather puffy/chubby during the pandemic, so he doesn’t seem to be getting the fitness that he used to.
It seems somewhat likely that he is facing some health issue, but that could be anything from cancer to gout to Parkinson’s, or just that he’s old, fat, and likes to spur rumors and conspiracy.
This sounds really reminiscent of all of the “Hillary Clinton is dying” rumors that were suddenly all over the Internet during the summer of 2016, and I expect they have roughly the same probability of being true.
In the unlikely event that he does have cancer, and a serious stage of it, that makes his invasion of Ukraine a lot more rational. He’d have nothing to lose. Either he conquers Ukraine, or else he loses but had little life remaining anyway.
Putin doesn’t HAVE cancer; he IS a cancer.
Untrue, sorry. Many such patients may need splenectomy.
/Shakes fist at Google
Curse you, gods! Curse you!
If it’s not true, it’s intelligent propaganda on the part of the Ukrainians. It’s impossible to disprove, and if given any credence it works to undermine Putin’s authority. It recasts the “strong man” narrative to “dying man in last desperate gamble with nothing to lose”. It could give those in the chain of command greater pause if Putin gives orders to do something even more insane like deploying nukes.
Someone be could be trying to poison him slowly. I hear it’s the Russian preferred way of assassination.
The rumors of illness have certainly been persistent, haven’t they?
The ones I’ve most commonly seen advanced are 1) Parkinson’s Disease and 2) some unspecified cancer. This thread is the first I’ve seen alleging “blood cancer”.
Here’s the most “dependable” recent source I’ve seen (and it ain’t much):
Obviously there is little confirmed amidst all this speculation.
Even before discussion of Putin’s state of health became a regular topic of conversation, I remember being struck at how changed his appearance is now compared to, say, Helsinki in mid 2018. The facial puffiness made me think of steroids.
The only way for Putin to dispel these rumors is to lead the next Russian offensive shirtless on a horse.
A day doesn’t go by without my praying for Putin’s death, so let’s keep our fingers crossed. That warmongering pig has done more to ruin Russia than any of his worst predecessors. Nostradamus was right about the coming of the Antichrist, and it’s Putin.
I disagree with those who compare him to Stalin or Hitler. The closest analog is Heinrich Himmler, another piece of shit who may have been a great spymaster and organizer of mass murder but failed utterly as a military commander.
Those that know don’t talk and those that talk don’t know. I wouldn’t trust anything the Kremlin says any more than I believed Ronnie Jackson when he gave the briefing on Donnie’s health. I’m not sure if I want him to die because we aren’t sure that the next guy won’t be worse.
I’d be willing to roll those dice!
Sitting with a blanket during the Victory Day celebration goes against his carefully choreographed image as a macho man. This at a time when he is trying to show force.
It makes me wonder if a power shift has already occurred and he was forced to show up like this in public as a sign. If that’s the case then he goes to the hospital for an operation and dies or has to step down publicly over poor health.
Yeah, and it’s not like people pushing 70 must be at peak fighting fit or else ready for hospice care. Sometimes you are just sick or worn out but that’s not the end of it all.
While the troops broadcast it live on their personal smartphones… y’know, to make sure everyone knows and can pinpoint where it is.
Except none of that reached anything like the mainstream press. It was clearly just wishful thinking by the crazier segment of the opposition. This seems like more than wishful thinking, how much more will no doubt be revealed in time.
It isn’t wishful thinking to believe that Putin is surrounded by sharks waiting for an opening, and an illness might be enough of one.
That was my thought too - very reminiscent of the French President Pompidou in his last illness
And I see others have made the same comparison:
He has to feel he’s in a precarious position. He’s coup-proofed himself as much as anyone could, but he’s still having high ranking people arrested and keeping himself in a bubble. If he felt safe, he’d relax. Whether or not he actually is safe, he clearly doesn’t feel it.
So I wonder if, in the current circumstances, he would ever allow himself the vulnerability of being anesthetized for however many hours it would take to complete a hypothetical procedure. Given the skullduggery that always seems to lurk behind Russian political succession, he would have to know some people would see it as an opportunity.