Bizarre claims have emerged that Vladimir Putin suffered a temporary “nervous breakdown” in recent days after changing to a stronger cancer medicine.
This comes as there is growing speculation that a body double was used to show Kremlin dictator Putin in a high profile visit with generals in occupied Ukraine.
His spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not outright deny the doppelganger today, but referred to the suggestions as “quite strange”.
Several Russian sources claim that Putin, 70, has changed medicine he is taking for cancer and is in a more serious condition than widely understood.
There is no independent verification for the assertions, but they are being discussed in non-official media outlets.
“He is now undergoing a third course of treatment,” said political analyst Valery Solovey, a former professor at Moscow’s prestigious Institute of International Relations [MGIMO], a training school for spies and diplomats.
“The previous two were extremely unsuccessful.”
Telegram channel General SVR which also regularly claims inside knowledge of Putin’s medical condition said Putin is “most of the time…under the control of doctors while trying not to overload himself with state affairs” despite problems from his war against Ukraine.
On Tuesday night Putin “probably had a nervous breakdown”.
“At about 21.40, Moscow time, the presidential guards heard strange sounds from the room where the president was.
“Putin did not answer a knock on the door, attempts to determine what was happening in other ways did not bring results.”
After seven minutes his guards who called Putin’s duty doctors "decided to enter the room where the president was.
“Putin sat on the floor near the sofa and wept hysterically.
“He was wearing only a wet white T-shirt, which he had probably tried to take off, and a black sock on his right leg.
“Next to him was a torn diaper, which Putin has been using all the time lately.
“To all appeals to him, the president practically did not react, continuing to sob.”
His medics injected an “antipsychotic drug” which led to a rapid improvement.
“The president felt better, he was washed, changed and put to bed.”
The doctors “cancelled a new drug they had just prescribed for the president” because of the debilitating “side effects” even though it was the basis of his new therapy.
Putin’s “health is deteriorating” and new treatment is “impossible to delay”, he said, allegedly referring to the diagnosis of doctors.
Solovey said “the possibilities of modern medicine allow you to prolong your existence in the form of a zombie for a long time.
“But it is not possible to be a public person.”
It was not Putin seen in the footage from Ukraine’s occupied regions of Kherson and Luhansk region, he said.
“It was his double. Everyone knows this,” he told interviewer Arseny Vesnin on Russian YouTube channel Ischem vykhod.
It is known that carefully edited footage of the ‘Putin visit’ was released at least one day, and perhaps several days, after it took place.
Wagner private army founder Yevgeny Prizoghin had refused to take part in the sham, alleged Solovey.
“He simply knew that this was not the president,” he said.
“When such things happen, nothing remains of reputation, of political weight.
“The system is still moving by inertia….but in operational and tactical terms, this is the final stage.”
Solovey claimed the inner circle were showing signs of supporting as successor the agriculture minister Dmitry Patrushev, 45, son of Putin’s top security aide and leading powerbroker Nikolai Patrushev, 71, a former FSB chief.
Putin is seen as earlier approving such a handover.
However, Putin had failed to make him prime minister, guaranteeing his at least temporary succession if the president resigned or died in office.
"Putin's inner circle is now showing signs of attention to Dmitry Patrushev, trying to make friends with him.
“These are the ten people closest to Putin…..
“Putin’s closest friends are entirely dependent on him.
“His weakening means the political end and the end of their assets….
“These are the people who do not have their own power resources and never will.”
Now change is likely in Russia with military catastrophe or defeat plus the elites acknowledging that Putin cannot fulfil his public duties.
The elites are sensing defeat and have stopped contacting Putin’s secret wife Alina Kabaeva, 39, he claimed.
“Even closest friends have stopped communicating with Alina Kabaeva,” he said.
“She complained about this to her husband [Putin].
“Her husband said, ‘You know, I'm not up to it now, there are more important problems’.
“Do you have any idea what this means in the Byzantine world, which is the Russian establishment, if the closest friends stopped communicating with the president's wife, even by phone?”
It was a sign that people are waiting for the end especially given Putin’s worsening illness, he said.
