New footage of Vladimir Putin showing unsteady, fidgeting and biting his lips throughout an Orthodox Easter service in Moscow on Sunday has added to suspicions that the Russian chief is significantly in poor health.
The frail-looking strongman is seen swaying in the course of the Mass performed by the Russian Orthodox Church, which has strongly backed its chief’s so-called “particular navy operation” in Ukraine.
Putin, 69 — wearing a darkish blue swimsuit, a white shirt and darkish purple tie — holds a purple candle as he stands in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral alongside Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
The warmongering president shifts uncomfortably, stands proud his tongue and bites his lips as Patriarch Kirill declares that “Christ has risen” – becoming a member of different members of the congregation with the reply, “Actually he’s risen.”
Putin, who crossed himself a number of occasions, in any other case didn’t converse.
Final week, he was seen trying bloated and awkwardly gripping a desk for assist in a clip launched by the Kremlin from a gathering together with his protection minister, Sergei Shoigu, to debate the destiny of the besieged Ukrainian metropolis of Mariupol.
The video confirmed Putin and his key adviser “each depressed & seemingly in dangerous well being,” tweeted Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist who was beforehand an adviser to Russia.
Former UK politician Louise Mensch said the footage appeared to again earlier stories that “Vladimir Putin has Parkinson’s illness.”
Different stories have prompt that Putin has lately had 35 secret conferences with a most cancers physician — and has turn into so paranoid about his well being that he has turned to unconventional therapies.
The Russian chief is alleged to bathe in blood extracted from deer antlers, that are hacked off whereas they’re rising and nonetheless stuffed with recent blood, in keeping with Russian investigative outlet The Venture.
Believers say the baths enhance the cardiovascular system and rejuvenate the pores and skin, the outlet defined.
The Kremlin has denied any allegations that Putin is ill.
With Publish wires
