Putin health

There have been a lot of rumors about Russia's President Vladimir Putin, seen here in the 2nd ... [+] Congress of Young Scientists at the Park of Science and Art "Sirius" in Sochi on December 2, 2022, being ill. (Photo by MIKHAIL METZEL/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images) SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images Here’s the poop on the latest rumors about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health. The hashtag #PutinPoopedHimself began trending on Twitter after Telegram channel asserted that Putin had fallen down five steps on a staircase, landing on his coccyx. Not Cossacks, but coccyx, which is the medical term for tailbone. Apparently, the tailbone didn’t end there, though. According to General SVR, this fall caused Putin to “defecate involuntarily,” as opposed to defecate voluntarily on the stairs. The image of someone falling down stairs and then having some fecal release may seem rather different from the picture of Putin riding shirtless on a horse that emerged over a decade ago in 2009. However, Putin himself hasn’t been putting forth statements about any recent fall or his coccyx. So the question is whether the Telegram story is actually legitimate or simply a pile of you-know-what. Naturally, relying on Twitter to vet information and determine whether it is accurate would be a bit like relying on a trash bag to serve as a parachute. This has been particularly the case ever since billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter, reportedly got rid of large chunks of its fact-checking staff, ha...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health has been a topic of global discussion after footage showed him coughing, walking stiffly and seemingly tired. WSJ looks at how his on-camera appearances are being scrutinized amid the war in Ukraine and questions over his succession. Photo: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters 6/10/2023 6:56PM 6/10/2023 Donald Trump was charged with 37 counts in the investigation into his handling of classified documents. In his indictment, federal prosecutors lay out how they allege the former president kept national-defense information he knew he wasn’t supposed to have. Photo Illustration: Xingpei Shen

Reports from two meetings this week have revealed signs which suggest great discomfort from Vladimir Putin, which leads analysts to believe that his health is frail. Two seemingly uncomfortable meetings On Tuesday, Vladimir Putinmet with the Cuban President, Miguel Díaz-Canel, in Moscow. Footage from one of their meetings has revealed Putin looking ‘shaky and unstable’, the Daily Mirror reports. Putin was observed in an uncomfortable posture while sitting, wrenching his chair with his left hand, and ‘tapping’ with his left foot. Analysts believe that Putin was trying to maintain balance albeit with great difficulty. This is what On Wednesday, Putin met with Dmitry Mazepin, Chairman of the Uralchem Group, a Russian manufacturing company. Similarly in this meeting, the Russian President showed a similar episode of awkwardly gripping the table, this time with his right hand. © Provided by Oh My Mag New signs suggest Vladimir Putin’s health condition is deteriorating Sasha Mordovets / Contributeur It all remains speculation Despite the signs from this week and previous reports, to date , there is no confirmed diagnosis about the health of Vladimir Putin. His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, had previously denied the reports, claiming ‘everything is fine with [Putin's] health’, Radar Online reports. Likewise, the director of the CIA, William Burns, was quoted this year calling Vladimir Putin ‘too healthy’. 'There are lots of rumors about President Putin's health and as far as we can t...

News of a recent alleged The surest guarantee that Russia will not reform along democratic lines is the power of its security and intelligence services. At key junctures in Soviet and post-Soviet history, amid coups, near-coups, reforms, and revolutions, the KGB and its successors have always acted as kingmaker. Their power has remained consistent as Kremlin leaders came and went. There is little reason to believe they will not do so again. Russia is effectively a siloviki, who have KGB or military backgrounds. By some estimates, 77 percent of Putin’s government were siloviki in 2019. According to one recent CIA chief of station in Moscow, the “overwhelming majority” of technocrats in his government come from this background. And Putin is not necessarily the most hardline among them. More from TIME If Putin were eliminated, and someone like Nikolai Patrushev, on Russia’s Security Council, were to take power, little would change. The same goes for another silovik, Putin’s minister of defense, Sergei Shoigu, or Alexander Bortnikov, old KGB hand and FSB director. With one of them at the helm, the situation may be worse. They may have clearer heads than Putin. The West may be better off with Putin than his alternatives. Better the devil you know. Yeltsin’s strategy was to separate the KGB’s functions, which had been responsible for combined domestic and foreign intelligence, into two new services: a security service, later called the FSB, and foreign service, the SVR. By split...

China's President Xi Jinping and Russia's President Vladimir Putin have sought to portray themselves as adamant allies, engaged in a longstanding partnership to roll back the US' global dominance. But China's president may not be as convinced as he appears that his "no limits" friendship with Putin will endure, amid rumors that the Russian president is suffering from a serious illness, According to one analyst, Xi is likely already seeking to form closer relations with potential successors to the Russian president. At the April summit where the Chinese president visited Putin in Moscow, Xi held a rare one-on-one meeting with Mistushin, noted Then, in May, China's Prime Minister Li Qiang invited Mishustin to China, where he " "Why was Mishustin invited and not Putin? This cannot have gone down well with the Russian leader," he writes. As evidence of Putin's displeasure, he points to Mishustin's absence from subsequent Russian Security Council meetings, of which the prime minister is a permanent member. "This old-style Kremlinology is perhaps the best evidence we have that China may be looking beyond Putin and seeking to cultivate alternative relationships in Russia." Mistushin's is not a name that usually comes up in discussions of potential successors to Putin. A former tax official, he has cultivated a reputation as an effective manager. According to Russian independent media organization In the closed world of Russian and Chinese politics, where reliable information on t...