Persistent rumors that Russian President Vladimir Putin is suffering from cancer can be laid to rest, according to his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. “I don’t think that sane people can see in this person signs of some kind of illness or ailment,” Lavrov—whose relationship the truth is at best sketchy—told France TF1 television. “You can watch him on screens, read and listen to his speeches. I leave it to the conscience of those who spread such rumors despite daily opportunities to assess how anyone is looking.”
Former member of Britain’s MI6 agency have claimed in recent weeks that Putin is seriously ill, possibly suffering from cancer. Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, predicted that he would be too sick to lead the country by next year, and controversial former head of the agency’s Russia desk, Christopher Steele, said he had been informed that Putin was “quite seriously ill” earlier this month.
Rumors intensified about the 69-year-old autocrat last year when he was noticeably puffy. Those rumors spread as various photos of him looked like they had been altered, perhaps to hide shaking or other ailments. Then over the weekend, an FSB officer reportedly told a former FSB officer who had defected that Putin has “no more than two to three years to stay alive” attributing the ailment to a “severe form of rapidly progressing cancer” that cause his limbs to tremble uncontrollably.
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The defector told the Sunday Mirror that he was told that Putin suffers debilitating headaches and is losing his vision. “We are told he is suffering from headaches and when he appears on TV he needs pieces of paper with everything written in huge letters to read what he’s going to say,” the Mirror reported. “They are so big each page can only hold a couple of sentences. His eyesight is seriously worsening.”
Lavrov made the comments during an interview riddled with untruths, including that Russia is beating Ukraine’s “neo-Nazi regime.” He also said that liberating the eastern part of the country was an “unconditional priority,” implying that perhaps some peace deal could be negotiated if it included the forfeiture of the areas that have been in various stages of armed conflict since 2014.
The foreign minister also said with a straight face that Russian soldiers were under “strict orders categorically to avoid attacks and strikes on civilian infrastructure.”
The United Nations estimates that 4,041 civilians have died and nearly 4,800 have been injured since Russia invaded. More than 14 million people have been displaced, either internally within the Ukraine or to Europe and elsewhere. It is unclear how many members of the Ukraine military have been killed.
