A new unverified report has claimed Vladimir Putin is receiving serious medical assistance at his private home in Moscow.
A Russian Telegram channel called General SVR doubled down on its previous claim the Russian President suffered “cardiac arrest” on Sunday evening and alleged on Tuesday the person who has been carrying out high-profile engagements in Russia in recent days is not Putin.
A post dated October 24 alleged: “While the unexpectedly well-coiffed double of Russian President Vladimir Putin is having a telephone conversation with the President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and meeting with the leader of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Kazbek Kokov, the real Putin lies in a room equipped as an intensive care ward in his residence, connected to equipment that monitors his vital parameters.
“After cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, the attending doctors assess the condition of the Russian President as stable and serious and consider the prospects without optimism.”
Putin’s health condition is so bad that his inner circle held consultations on Monday with representatives of several elite groups to determine what to do in the immediate future, the report added.
Putin’s double, the post claimed, may continue to represent the ailing Russian President for a time, while being directed by a “politburo”.
This message, presented without sources or other evidence, was shared hours before the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, rejected claims the Russian president is unwell.
Rather, Mr Peskov told reporters during his daily press conference, Putin is fit and well.
Claims Putin is being impersonated by body doubles carrying out engagements in his name were also dismissed as “an absurd hoax” by Mr Peskov.
Speculation regarding Putin’s health has been circulating for several months not just on social media but also on mainstream publications.
Last year, The Moscow Times cited an investigative report by independent Russian media outlet Proekt Media claiming Putin had been accompanied by doctors, including a thyroid cancer surgeon, on trips to his residence in Sochi from 2016 to 2019.
In April 2022, a classified US intelligence report later shared by Newsweek claimed Putin had recently undergone treatment for advanced cancer.
In January this year, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky cast doubt on Putin’s health as spoke to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
He said: “Right now I don’t understand who to talk to. I am not sure whether the president of Russia is still alive. I don’t understand that he’s still alive or that it is him particularly making decisions.”
