- Friday, March 07, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Speculation over the health of Russian president Vladimir Putin has become stronger and while some suspect that the veteran leader is suffering from a serious illness, there are others who believe that he is already dead and the man the world is seeing is actually a ‘hologram’.
Retired British Army officer Lord Dannatt recently raised the health issue of Putin, 70, on a television show and suggested that the recent images of Putin seem to indicate that he is not well.
Speaking to Sky News, Lord Dannatt said, “We talked a number of months ago about how healthy or not Vladimir Putin was. Keen observers now are noting that his hands are looking pretty black on top, which is a sign of injections going in when other parts of the body can’t take injections. It’s interesting to note that and just to watch whether he is as fit and well as he would like to portray, it’s an interesting area to keep an eye on.”
Several reports from US intelligence have also said that the Russian president might be at an advanced stage of blood cancer.
Earlier in 2022, an unnamed Russian oligarch reportedly said that Putin was “very ill with blood cancer”. According to one report, the oligarch was heard discussing the health of the Russian president with a westerner and said that the leader underwent a surgery shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
According to the defence ministry of Ukraine, Putin could be a hologram and that the leader is actually part of a “collective Putin”, the Daily Star reported in October.
Vladimir Putin could be a hologram according to the Ukraine Defence Ministry, leading to renewed scepticism of the Russian despot health situation.
“It could be Putin, it could be the ‘collective Kremlin’, or it could be a hologram. Is there a possibility that this is ‘collective Putin’ There is a possibility that we haven’t seen the person we used to think of as Putin lately. This is a separate interesting subject of research and development. It is very important to understand that Putin is now a collective image, a regime, a certain collective system,” the Star quoted sceptic sources as saying.
In May, the Star quoted top sources in British intelligence to say that Putin has been very seriously ill and if he died, the news would be kept secret as long as possible.
The Star quoted one source as saying that Putin’s recent media appearances were probably pre-recorded and a body double may have been used at public events.
“Putin is very ill and when he dies his death will be kept secret for weeks, if not months,” the report quoted one source as saying, adding, “There is also the possibility that he is already dead. It’s impossible to know. It is believed that Putin has employed body doubles in the past when he has been unwell and the Kremlin could be doing so now.”
