The top Russian official serving as the face of Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine hasn’t been seen publicly for nearly two weeks—but that’s because he’s busy with “many concerns,” the Kremlin said Thursday. Asked by reporters to comment on the whereabouts of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was busy with Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine. “Of course, now is not exactly the time for media activity. That’s completely understandable,” he said, brushing off reports of Shoigu experiencing undisclosed health problems. He went on to say Shoigu had attended a recent meeting where he briefed Putin on the state of the war in Ukraine—though no video recording of such a meeting was released, Meduza reported. Speculation about the cause of Shoigu’s mysterious absence has only grown after longtime Putin adviser Anatoly Chubais abruptly resigned and left the country this week, reportedly in protest of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine. Peskov tried to play down Chubais’ departure in comments to Russian media Thursday, claiming he was not a “direct employee of the presidential administration.” “Listen, I honestly don’t understand why we are devoting so much time to this,” he was quoted telling Komsomolskaya Pravda. “Every day someone resigns from the administration, or new employees come. It’s a fairly large and lively mechanism.”
