For the last few years, there's been almost constant speculation that Putin has some sort of illness. With various outlets claiming that Putin has everything from Parkinson's to some sort of cancer, But despite the Kremlin's repeated denials, some of his recent media performances have only added fuel to the fire. So, in this article, we'll look at the evidence to see if Putin is truly on the verge of death, and, perhaps more importantly, we'll look at what these rumors can teach us about the psychology of war in general.
Before I get into the article, a quick disclaimer: we are conscious that this sort of article can seem a bit speculative and tabloid, so we'd like to explain why we thought it was a topic worth covering. Firstly, it does actually matter if Putin is ill because it affects his decision-making calculus and that could end up impacting all of us. If he really is on death's door, then he has less incentive to avoid things like nuclear war than he would otherwise. And more incentive to escalate the war in Ukraine to achieve his desired outcome sooner than he might otherwise. Secondly, while there's very little solid evidence to suggest that Putin is actually ill, the story itself is nonetheless interesting because it tells us something about how the media works in times of war, something we'll touch on later.
Anyway, qualifiers aside, let's get into it. The immediate cause of this article is an interview that appeared last week in the Ukrainian news outlet Pravda, where Ukraine's head of military intelligence claimed that he had definitive proof that Putin is seriously ill with not just cancer, but several serious illnesses. In the same interview, though, Ukraine's intelligence chief claimed that Putin was unlikely to die before the war in Ukraine was over, claiming that he had at least a few years left. But it still sparked a flurry of media attention, especially in western outlets. Russia's foreign minister had to explicitly reject the rumors that Putin was at all ill. Now, this isn't the first time that we've heard rumors about Putin's impending demise. In 2014, various eastern European outlets and the New York Post reported that Putin had pancreatic cancer, something that the Kremlin angrily denied.
Then in late 2020, British newspaper The Sun suggested that Putin had both cancer and Parkinson's disease. Then, in late 2021, various Russian outlets reported that Putin was suffering from back issues, which was later confirmed by Putin's ally, Lukashenko. Anyway, since the invasion of Ukraine, reports of Putin's ill health have become increasingly common. These days there's a new report suggesting that the Russian president has some sort of ailment, from spinal cord cancer to brain aneurysms, with increasingly fantastic details. A Times report from April, for example, claimed that Putin had been bathing in blood extracted from severe deer antlers in order to cure his cancer. While it seems very unlikely that Putin spends his free time bathing in Dender Marrow, there have nonetheless been a couple of more semi-credible reports, including one from New Lines magazine in early May.
That's because new lines had managed to get hold of a recording between a western venture capitalist and a Russian oligarch where the oligarch, unaware that he was on tape, claimed that Putin had some sort of late-stage blood cancer. The other interesting report came from Bellingcat, an online forensic research team who claimed to have gotten a hold of an internal FSB memo instructing regional chiefs to deny all rumors of Putin's ill health. Anyway, these reports are often accompanied by clips of Putin apparently displaying symptoms of various illnesses. For instance, there are all of those videos of Putin at his ridiculously long table, apparently because he's paranoid about COVID, which would be consistent with some sort of terminal illness.
There's also a video of him clinging onto a table during his meeting with Sergey Shoigu, which could have been interpreted as a symptom of Parkinson's. Then there are quite a few videos of him suffering from apparently involuntary hand and leg tremors, which could also be a symptom of Parkinson's, so what does all of this mean? Well, while these reports might inspire hope for anyone who wants Putin gone at the end of the day, this is all very much circumstantial. And most of the videos can be explained by the fact that he's nearly 70. While he's definitely in slightly worse shape than he used to be, that's sort of what you'd expect from a guy entering his third decade as a world leader.
It's also worth saying that most of this analysis has been done by internet sleuths, and US intelligence chiefs are apparently skeptical of the idea that there's anything seriously wrong with Putin. At this point, that doesn't mean he definitely isn't ill; at the very least, he's clearly in worse nick than he was a few years ago, but we're just saying that he probably shouldn't expect Putin to kick the bucket anytime soon. So if there's no solid evidence, how come this story is sticking around? Well, there are a few obvious reasons. First, it's a nice story, at least for westerners who don't approve of Putin's invasion. The idea that Putin is about to keel over appeals to our sense of cosmic justice and gives us hope for some sort of easy end to the conflict. And it's similar to the reason that we still hear stories about AKU in the Kremlin even though there's very little evidence to suggest that Putin has any internal challenges.
Secondly, Ukraine has an incentive to propagate this idea because it doubtless improves morale. We should say here that we're not suggesting that Ukraine's intelligence chief was lying when he gave that interview last week, but it's nonetheless true that Ukraine has an incentive to keep this rumor swirling, which means they might be more active in their briefing. All in all, the Putin illness story is an interesting example of how war can affect the media. Otherwise, reputable sources have run stories with little evidence suggesting that Putin bathes in reindeer blood or is doing some sort of pop psychology analysis of his posture. In the end, we're unlikely to ever know if Putin is actually ill or not, and if he is, then good luck to those of us who don't want a nuclear apocalypse.
