The Kremlin on Tuesday denied recent speculation about President Vladimir Putin’s health problems, as well as suggestions that he used a body double, Reuters reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov told a daily press conference on Tuesday that the rumors were an “absurd falsification” after being asked about it by reporters.

Kremlin journalists asked Peskov about the state of the Russian president’s health after the Russian Telegram channel of the former Kremlin “insider” wrote that Putin had a heart attack at the event on Sunday.

The information was also picked up by some Western media.

In recent months since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, several Western publications have written that Vladimir Putin is suffering from various serious illnesses, but so far none of these reports have been confirmed.

The CIA poured cold water on rumors about Putin’s illnesses

The head of the CIA, William Burns, has denied these rumors since last July, saying that the US special services have no data that would indicate mental instability or poor health of the Kremlin leader.

The head of military intelligence of Ukraine, General Kyrylo Budanov, also spread this thesis about Putin’s alleged serious illness. In January of this year, he said that the Russian president has cancer and will die “very soon.”

Budanov answered HotNews.ro’s question about this topic in a March interview:

“First of all, I want to say that I stated this back in 2021. Then journalists asked me, and I said that (not Putin) had two or three years left to live. Therefore, there is nothing new in this statement.”

The Kremlin says that the health of the Russian president is “enviable”.

As for the rumors that Putin will use doppelgangers, they, in turn, appeared even before the start of the war in Ukraine, but have become more frequent, since the last steps of the Russian president caused international interest.

Igor Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, said in March of this year that the only times when President Vladimir Putin is real and not a double is when the Kremlin leader appears alone or at the end. at the table, away from the guests.

But his comments came amid a wave of accusations against Russia’s military command and the country’s political leadership about how the “special military operation” is being conducted. Girkin was eventually arrested by Russian authorities in July and charged with extremism.

In an interview in 2020, Putin was directly asked about the rumors about his alleged doppelgangers. At the time, he denied that he would resort to such a security measure, but said he had the opportunity.

In April of this year, Peskov, for his part, said that talk about his boss’s doubles is “another lie”, assuring that Putin is in an “enviable” state of health.

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