[quote BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation]@MissConductUS the link is behind a paywall. Please could you summarise what is being said and if there's any reliable intelligence behind it? I keep hoping he's going to croak it 🙏[/quote]
@BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation
How odd. The Telegraph usually does have a paywall, but for me it's down at the moment. I'm in the US, so possibly it's geo sensitive. Here's the text of the article.
It is all circumstantial but there is growing evidence that Vladimir Putin could be suffering from a serious illness.
At least five factors point to suspicions that his horrendous decision to invade Ukraine could be underpinned not by his mental state, the effects of Covid isolation, or hubris, but by a physical condition that spurred him to gamble on a quick win.
- Putin's appearance
The Russian president has appeared notably more bloated around the face and neck recently.
That has led to suggestions he may be undergoing treatment with steroids.
Side effects of steroids include increased risk of infection, like coughs and colds, and "mood and behavioural changes."
"Sometimes, when taken in higher doses, steroids can cause confusion or changes in thinking," according to Macmillan Cancer Support. "This can include having strange or frightening thoughts."
In November 2020 Mr Putin suffered an extended coughing fit during a televised meeting with his finance minister. The footage was later edited and the Kremlin said he was "absolutely fine".
According to Fiona Hill, the British former senior White House expert on Russia, Mr Putin is "not looking so great" at the moment.
Ms Hill, who has met Mr Putin more than once, said: "He’s been rather puffy-faced. We know that he has complained about having back issues. Even if it’s not something worse than that, it could be that he’s taking high doses of steroids, or there may be something else.
"There seems to be an urgency for this [invasion] that may be also driven by personal factors."
Putin
Mr Putin's face has appeared fuller recently Credit: Pool Sputnik Kremlin
- The Long Tables
People with weakened immune systems are at higher risk of contracting severe cases of coronavirus, and other infections.
That would include those taking immune-suppressing drugs.
There has been much speculation about why Mr Putin has engaged in such extreme social distancing.
Emmanuel Macron was forced to sit at the other end of a 13ft table.
During a televised meeting Mr Putin's own foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was also seated at the other end of an absurdly long table.
And at a meeting where he humiliated his spy chief Mr Putin's top security officials all had to sit at the other side of a giant marble chamber.
Putin
Extreme social distancing: Mr Macron was not allowed anywhere near Mr Putin Credit: Reuters
Covid cases have soared in Russia recently, but the extraordinary efforts to keep Mr Putin in a "bubble" go back many months.
Many of those entering his presence have been forced to quarantine in hotels for two weeks beforehand, including business leaders, politicians and staff.
There have also been reports of a tunnel leading to his office in which visitors are sprayed with disinfectant.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who is a decade older, has been huddling around a relatively small table in the Situation Room elbow-to-elbow with his advisers.
Mr Putin, 69, says he has taken the Sputnik vaccine, but it was not filmed.
His extreme measures to avoid the virus would make sense if he had an underlying condition.
But bizarrely, he did shake hands with - and sit right next to - an unvaccinated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro a few weeks ago.
- The Intelligence
Marco Rubio, the Republican senator, set a hare running at the weekend when he suggested "something is off" with Mr Putin.
Mr Rubio is no random internet conspiracy theorist, he is the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
As such, he sees classified intelligence, which he can't talk about.
However, he is at liberty to drop hints. And he has.
Mr Rubio said: "I wish I could share more, but for now, I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with Putin.
"He has always been a killer, but his problem now is different and significant."
Mr Rubio later expanded that Mr Putin "appears to have some neuro/physiological health issues."
He did not give details on what was informing his opinion.
Rubio
Senator Marco Rubio after being briefed on the latest Ukraine information Credit: Reuters
There are growing suggestions that if the US does have intelligence that Mr Putin is sick, they should release it.
A former White House national security official told the Telegraph the US should "make it personal" and release anything it had on Mr Putin.
The French may also have suspicions. The assessment of a French official, following Mr Macron's marathon meeting with Mr Putin before the invasion, hinted at something.
The official was quoted as saying that Mr Putin was "not the same" as when Mr Macron met him two years earlier. He was more rigid and ideological and had, in some respects, "gone haywire".
There has also still been no firm answer as to why Mr Putin disappeared from public view for 10 days in 2015. Speculation about a health scare was dismissed at the time.
- Russian academic claims Putin has Parkinson's disease and cancer
In November 2020 Professor Valery Solovei, a former historian at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, was quoted as suggesting Mr Putin may have Parkinson's disease and cancer.
He also suggested that Mr Putin may be poised to quit in 2021 due to fears for his health.
At the time Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “absolute nonsense” and “everything is fine with the president.”
Asked if Mr Putin was planning to step down in the near future, Mr Peskov said: “No”.
Prof Solovei resigned from the institute, where he was head of the public relations department, in 2019, saying "political pressure" was responsible for his departure.
He was later detained at an opposition protest in Moscow.
Peskov
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Putin was "fine" Credit: Reuters
- Putin's accelerated timeline
In his mission to restore what he considers lost Russian land, Mr Putin had previously taken a long view.
In 2008 he invaded Georgia in support of the self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Six years later, he annexed Crimea.
Under changes to the Russian constitution made in early 2021, he could remain president until 2036.
That would give him plenty of time for incremental land grabs, what the West might see as "minor incursions" punishable only with a slap on the wrist.
For those reasons many Putin watchers expected him to adopt "salami tactics," taking Ukraine "slice by slice" over a period of time.
They have been left puzzled as to why he would take such a gamble on capturing the whole of Ukraine, a country of 44 million people, in one go with a force military experts say was not enough.
It only increases the suspicion that, perhaps, his health meant he was running out of time.