A new video released Thursday by the Kremlin showing Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is leading to speculation on social media that the country's leader may be very ill.
"Putin's meeting with Shoigu today shows both depressed and seemingly in bad health," Russia, Ukraine and Eastern European author and economist Anders Åslund said in a post on Twitter after watching the 12-minute video. "Shoigu has to read his comments to Putin, and slurs badly, suggesting that the rumors of his heart attack are likely. He sits badly. Poor performance. Worth watching."
The posts point to how Putin, who appears bloated, is sitting at the table with Shoigu, tapping one foot on the floor, and grasping the table with one hand during the meeting.
Another British author on the region, former member of Parliament Louise Mensch, posted that she believes it shows Putin suffering from Parkinson's disease, a subject she wrote a Substack column on in March.
"I reported, Vladimir Putin has Parkinson's disease and here you can see him gripping the table so that his shaking hand is not visible, but he cannot stop his foot from tapping," she posted on Twitter Thursday.
A defense reporter with The Kyiv independent, Illia Ponomarenko, also posted on Twitter that Putin looked sick in the meeting.
"Is this just me or Putin really looks less healthy and sound with each and every day of the war," Ponomarenko posted Thursday on Twitter. "I can see a drastic difference between now and late February."
Rumors about the Russian leader's health have been running rampant in recent years, and especially since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, attributing an array of serious health conditions to Putin based on his public appearances.
The independent Russian media outlet Proekt published a story April 1, saying that Putin is now as concerned about his health as he is with geopolitics.
"It is commonly assumed that by his 23rc year in office, the Russian president is only interested in geopolitics," the article stated. "In fact, there is at least one other issue that concerns Putin at least as much — his own health. It seems that the president has a lot to worry about. In the year of the anniversary of the head of the Russian state, The Project answers the most secret questions of the Kremlin — who treats Putin and from what."
According to the article, Putin, now 69, has been plagued since 2012 by a back injury from falling off a horse that caused him to limp noticeably at a public wreath-laying ceremony.
The story also asserts that a team of five doctors fly to visit the president regularly, and that Putin has had at least two serious surgeries, or "very serious procedures" in the last several years.
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