Vladimir Putin looked puffy-faced and exhausted as he tried to stay awake during a meeting with his top military official, a new video shows.
Putin - who is rumoured to be taking steroids as part of treatment for thyroid cancer - slumped over his desk and looked fatigued in a short clip of the meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu yesterday.
The 69-year-old manages to utter an unenthusiastic congratulations to his troops - who he claims has "liberated" the pro-Russia eastern region of Luhansk of Ukraine.
After the camera records Putin's brief message it looks as if he's nodding off before it quickly pans to Shoigu and remains on his face for the majority of the video.
In the staged broadcast, he tells troops to "rest and develop their combat capabilities" after capturing the strategic region.
Putin mumbles: "Other military units, including the East group and the West group, must carry out their tasks according to previously approved plans."
The dictator has reportedly been stricken with either Parkinson's or thyroid cancer with rumours swirling about the ailing tyrant since the start of the war.
Last month a medical professor told The Mirror how his aggressive decision-making is because he's on a high dosage of steroids.
Senior figures in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States – have cited Kremlin sources as saying they believe there is a physiological explanation for the Russian president’s globally denounced decision to start a bloody war in Ukraine.
They say he has so-called ‘roid rage’, which is caused by the prolonged use of steroids.
Professor Angus Dalgleish of St George's, University of London, agrees, telling The Mirror: "We hear all the things that people say about him such as him losing his temper quickly and he's very frustrated so I think that he's clearly been on anabolic steroids."
Professor Dalgleish says the Kremlin brute is a narcissist who does egomaniac things such as posing bare-chested on horses.
"Those sorts of people are likely to be taking anabolic steroids," he continued.
The medical professor also said he may be taking opiates: "He's had that really bad back pain so he's likely to be taking opiates, they can also make you dumb and aggressive."
His decision to invade Ukraine has been widely condemned and led to the death of over 4000 civilians, with the true toll believed to be higher.
Professor Dalgleish said if people give Putin advice he doesn't like, "he basically ostracises them, fires them or put them under house arrest".
Questions were asked again about Putin’s health after the despot was seen visibly shaking as he presented a medal in mid-June.
It came as Putin presented the State Prize of the Russian Federation to filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov at the Kremlin.
In May, when he met with Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi, he was caught on camera awkwardly twisting his feet when the pair sat down for talks.
He was seen unable to stand still, seeming to sway back and forth as he listened to the recipient accept the prize.
The Express reported he also shook his legs as he appeared to make side to side movements.
