Vladimir Putin is not ill, says Russian foreign minister

Discussing the Russian leader’s health is near taboo at home, but speculation has been rife that he is suffering a serious illness.

Speculation continues to swirl around the health of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Picture: AFP

Russia’s foreign minister has denied that Vladimir Putin is ill, dismissing speculation about his physical condition from former spies, sources close to the Kremlin and assessments of his television appearances.

“President Vladimir Putin makes public appearances on a daily basis,” Sergey Lavrov, 72, told French television. “I don’t think that a sane person can suspect any signs of an illness or ailment in this man.

“I’ll leave it on the conscience of those who disseminate such rumours despite daily opportunities for everyone to see how he and others look like.”

Discussing the health of Mr Putin, 69, is a near taboo in Russia today but abroad speculation has been rife over whether he is suffering from a serious illness, as alleged by Ukrainian officials since Russia invaded.

Mr Lavrov also called the “liberation” of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine an “unconditional priority” for Moscow, adding that it was up to the rest of the country whether it was “happy to return to the authority of a neo-Nazi regime that has proven it is Russophobic in essence”.

“Winning the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, recognised by the Russian Federation as independent states, is an unconditional priority,” he said, reflecting Moscow’s incremental gains in the two provinces in Donbas in which Kremlin-backed separatists have run breakaway administrations over the past eight years.

Russian troops are at present focusing firepower on the city of Severodonetsk, the largest city that Ukraine still controls in Luhansk, where most critical infrastructure has been destroyed.

Kyiv is begging the West for longer-range weapons, warning that 100 days into the war, Ukraine was still not receiving the weapons it needs to repel the Russian invasion, particularly from Germany.

Mr Lavrov’s job as Russia’s chief foreign envoy may receive a boost from confirmation by an annual global poll of attitudes towards democracy revealing a sharp divide between the West and the rest of the world in their perceptions of Russia.

The survey, from Latana and the Alliance of Democracies, found a majority in Europe in favour of cutting ties with Russia over the Ukraine invasion but a majority in Asia against and Latin America divided.

The poll may prove helpful to Moscow’s narrative that it is being singularly persecuted by the West. Net positive views of Russia were found both in countries such as China, the US’s chief geopolitical rival, as well as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two of Washington’s more challenging allies.

Confusing the picture, these attitudes were accompanied by widespread sympathy for Ukraine’s plight and a significant proportion who believed that NATO had not done enough for Ukraine, although the kind of assistance advocated was not specified.

The Times