Russian President Vladimir Putin looked odd as he got off a plane in Iran to meet with leaders, walking strangely with one arm hanging by his side as he swung the other wildly.
Putin hobbled along the red carpet and did not appear to shake hands as top Iranian officials greeted him.
The president has been plagued by claims that he has cancer or perhaps Parkinson’s disease. He has also been seen shaking uncontrollably and holding on to objects like desks and podiums for support. In addition, Putin has been seen looking puffy and bloated.
Sickly Putin hobbles along red carpet with his arm hanging limp by his side as he arrives in Iran for anti-West summit pic.twitter.com/20LYvyLabs
— The Sun (@TheSun) July 19, 2022
Back in May, a Ukrainian intelligence chief claimed Vladimir Putin is suffering from “several serious illnesses,” including cancer, but the Russian president will likely live “at least a few more years,” reported the Daily Mail.
Kyiv military spy chief Kyrylo Budanov also said assassins targeted Putin, but the attempt to take him out was thwarted.
“In an [sic] much-heralded interview with Ukrayinska Pravda, Budanov, 36, confirmed that the Ukrainians believe Putin is suffering from cancer, but did not add to an advance excerpt from the interview which revealed an apparent assassination bid on him,” the Daily Mail reported.
“He has several serious illnesses, one of which is cancer,” Budanov said. “But it is not worth hoping that Putin will die tomorrow. He has at least a few more years. Like it or not, but it’s true.”
Still, the spy chief said Putin is in a “confused” state mentally.
“Here we can argue a lot about the state of the dictator, who thought he would capture the whole country [Ukraine] in three days and raise the Russian flag on the administration building in Kyiv,” he said. “And for the third month in a row, declaring that he has the second and sometimes the first army in the world, he cannot cope, in his words, ‘with backward non-state Ukraine.’”
Some reports say the 69-year-old former KGB agent has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy, while still others say that judging by his physical behavior at public events, he may have something else, like Parkinson’s or dementia.
Speculation swirled about Putin’s health when he skipped a hockey game in which he had played for about a decade, and in one public appearance, he appeared bloated and was seen clinging to a table.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.