Ukraine-Russia: Coughing and limping Vladimir Putin sparks health questions
Vladimir Putin’s strained appearance under a blanket during a V-Day parade has sparked fresh health questions.
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Images of Russian President Vladimir Putin coughing, limping and covering up with a thick blanket during his Victory Day parade have sparked fresh questions about the Russian president’s health.
His strained appearance came amid reports of a new assault on Mariupol’s steel factory, where Ukraine’s last defenders were holding out against “storming operations”.
Ukraine defence minister Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told an online briefing that Russia was stepping up its assault on the steelworks further, with an expected bombardment from Tu-22 M3 bombers.
“The enemy continues to blockade our units in the area of the Azovstal factory, and is conducting storming operations with the support of tank and artillery fire,” he said.
Mr Putin has claimed victory in Mariupol despite the small contingent of defenders holed up in the steel factory, which he indicated would remain encircled until surrendering.
As Ukraine prepared to defend against the renewed assault in Mariupol, the 69-year-old Russian President sparked renewed health questions in Moscow’s Red Square.
Parade footage showed him appear to walk uncomfortably before he sat with a heavy green blanket draped over his lap in relatively mild weather for Moscow.
It’s the latest in a series of out-of-character public displays of frailty for the Russian President, including the recent clutching of the table during meetings with defence minister Sergei Shoigu.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied rumours, spreading back to 2020, that Mr Putin is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisting he is in excellent health.
During the parade to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, Putin was also seen coughing multiple times and was the only one covered by the lap blanket.
PUTIN’S HUMILIATION AS PARADE HACKED
The health rumours were the latest humiliation for the Russian President after his parade was interrupted by hackers who hijacked his speech to thousands of troops in Red Square to declare they all have “blood on their hands”.
Russians mark Victory Day, the most patriotic date on their calendar, to commemorate the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
Mr Putin made a rare public appearance in Moscow for the event and was met with a parade of thousands of Russian soldiers.
But hackers hijacked transmissions to various Russian channels and inserted a caption over hacked screens as millions of viewers watched from home, The Sun reports.
The message read: “The blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of their children is on your hands. TV and the authorities lie. No to war.”
Mr Putin claimed the West was “preparing for the invasion of our land including Crimea” as he opened the annual parade marking victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
But he stopped short of declaring his nation at war as widely anticipated, instead saying his actions had stopped a possible plot by Europe to invade Russia.
The usually flashy May 9 affair has always been full of historic rhetoric and references to a Soviet Union of the past overcoming the odds.
But Mr Putin this time used the event to justify his assault on Ukraine that has gone on longer and taken a greater toll than both the Kremlin and Russian people had envisaged.
Mr Putin, who has long referred to his invasion of Ukraine as a “special operation”, had been expected to declare outright war to up-the-ante on neighbour Ukraine.
Instead, he told thousands of troops that had gathered in Red Square in Moscow for his address, Russia would do everything it could to ensure “the horror of a global war does not happen again”.
“In Kyiv they were saying they might get nuclear weapons and NATO started exploring the lands close to us and that became an obvious threat to our country and to our borders. Everything was telling us that there is a need to fight.”
He added: “Russia preventively rebuffed the aggressor, it was necessary, timely and ... right.”
He justified heavy losses of his troops as honour in “fighting for the motherland, its future”.
“The death of every soldier and officer is painful for us,” he said. “The state will do everything to take care of these families.”
His words came as Russian forces intensified its assault on Ukraine, including dropping a bomb on a school being used as a shelter with fears more than 60 mostly civilians were killed in the basement.
There were 90 people in the eastern village of Bilohorivka school shelter when it was flattened with emergency crews rescuing 30 people.
UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace described as ironic Russia was now the aggressor and being beaten by military minnow Ukraine.
“Through their invasion of Ukraine, Putin, his inner circle and generals are now mirroring the fascism and tyranny of 70 years ago, repeating the errors of last century’s totalitarian regimes,” he said in a major address at the National Army Museum in London.
He added their (Russia’s) fate would be the same.
“In going to such extremes to justify this war of choice he (Putin) and his generals are now ripping up both Russia’s past and its future,” he said.
“Their unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine, attacks against innocent citizens and their homes, and the widespread atrocities – including deliberately against women and children – corrupts the memory of past sacrifices and Russia’s once-proud global reputation.”
Mr Wallace said the parade generals “in their manicured uniforms” were complicit in the illegal invasion and war crimes.
The British government also expressed its horror at the bombing of the school as it pledged another $2 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
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