Even cowed American News outlets haven’t submitted to Trump so far as to not sometimes talk about his health. Hey, he paints his freaking face orange to hide how ghastly he looks without all that gunk caked on. And he clearly has trouble getting around. They don’t HARP on it like they did with Biden but at least it comes up. What I wonder is why so little attention is given to PUTIN’S health issues. At least it’s being talked about some now. Putin isn’t as old as Trump but he’s 72 and he’s not out riding horses shirtless anymore!
In some places including here on Politizoom Trump’s less than steady walk down the steps of Air Force One and then the red carpet was noted. As were some outlets (not so much American ones) making note of his ‘cankles’/swollen ankles. Again. However while in comparison to Trump Putin’s gait looked ok some journalists noted HE wasn’t exactly strolling along the way he used to. AND that he had to pause halfway down the steps of his own freaking plane to rest/steady himself.
Rumors have swirled about Putin’s health for some years now. I recall talk at one point of him having stomach cancer (hence the origins of the ‘poop briefcase’ which I’ll get to) which of course were denied by Russia. Still, the days of him riding shirtless on horseback or striding on the beach (again shirtless) seem long gone. When meeting with foreigners at the Kremlin he sits fifty feet away and talks down a long, loooooong table. So they can’t get a good look at him perhaps? Sometimes news outlets have commented on Putin’s potential serious illness(s) and this past March The Economic Times published a fairly comprehensive look. It’s worth the time to read I assure you.
It starts with (and remember the linked article was published at the end of March) with Zelenskyy stating Putin would ‘die soon.’Â Well, as I said we’ve heard in the past he was seriously ill and might even die. Looking at the here and now I for one would say “soon” has come and gone but it doesn’t mean Putin isn’t battling more than one serious health issue as the article notes. After mentioning news reports of suggesting Putin is dealing with serious health issues (cancer and Parkinson’s) evidenced by shaking limbs and puffy features (and the Kremlin’s denying it all) they pose the question: Does Putin have a serious illness? Under that heading they say:
Concerns about Putin’s health have been raised by a series of strange public appearances and intelligence leaks, including whispered diagnoses of Parkinson’s and cancer, as well as reports of bloated features and trembling “jelly” legism, as quoted in a report by the Daily Mail.
The go on to point out in recent years Putin has frequently had a puffy face, bloodshot eyes, tremors/twitches etc. that have fueled rumors. They also cite some specific examples:
During a meeting with then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in 2022, the president slouched in his chair, gripped a table, and slurred his words in one particularly well-known instance.
He has been reported to cough constantly and to have jerky, seemingly involuntary movements in his hands and feet. He seemed to walk with a limp on multiple occasions.
Oh but there’s more. Remember the ‘poop briefcase’ I mentioned? Well there’s a Daily Beast article indicating it’s an actual thing (and why). From The Daily Beast:
First identified by Paris Match, the poop briefcase travels abroad with the Russian delegation to ensure that their leader’s feces do not fall into the wrong hands. Human waste carries genetic and lifestyle information that could reveal intimate details about Putin’s health. Out of an abundance of caution, the feces is collected, deposited in said briefcase, and returned to the motherland.
Given what we know about Putin’s paranoia it’s not a stretch to imagine such drastic steps from Putin/the Kremlin, something I’ll address last. Now, I try to be a good person and compassionate, to show human decency even to people I can’t stand. However, once in a while I can’t summon it because in my humble opinion there are people so despicable as to not be deserving of the least bit of compassion/human decency. Putin is one of them. So, if like me you have a mean streak somewhere in you and feel like letting it out for a romp PLEASE click on The Daily Beast article It includes a tongue-in-cheek “statement” from Pootie’s infamous poopie briefcase and yeah, hate on me all you want for being an a-hole about human (does Putin qualify?) suffering and laughing. If you want to enjoy yourself with some SERIOUS Putin trolling it’s hard to top this!
Getting back to serious stuff we have good reason to be focused on Trump’s health. On the other hand if he were to choke on a ‘hamberder’ and no one on his Secret Service detail has arms long enough to wrap around his fat gut to give him the Heimlich, or if he just keels over from a heart attack or stroke we’re covered. We had a line of succession and it’s been successful in the past. A sudden shift from one President to another is never easy but we’ve done it. And we would again.
Such is not the case in dictatorships which brings me to the last question I want to explore. Putin might not be a heart attack waiting to happen like Trump is but it seems clear he’s been dancing with death more than once in recent years. Who the hell knows what doctors over there are doing to keep him ‘functional’ and whether all that medical version of duct-tape and bailing wire will suddenly fail. Faster than the docs can fix it.
It’s common for things in a country ruled by an iron-fisted dictator to turn to sh*t when they die, even when there’s some warning. Sometimes they are so convinced they will somehow and against all odds live on they take no steps at all to set up someone to carry on and protect their ‘legacy.’ Such is the case in Russia. More than one ruthless oligarch sits like a hungry wolf waiting for Pootie to die. Even, if only to themselves scheming on making that day come sooner rather than later. Some of these guys are as despicable as Putin. In a way having them engage in their own version of Hunger Games would be a good thing. On the other hand the eventual winner might have that much more power.
That’s why this article from The National Security Journal is worth a read. Its author, Reuben Johnson states in the title this isn’t 1991 and Russia faces a different kind of collapse. His lede sums it up:
While the theory that Russia could collapse under the strain of the Ukraine war is popular, a direct comparison to the fall of the USSR is flawed.
-Unlike the Soviet Union’s final years, which saw a rapid turnover of leadership and liberalizing reforms under Gorbachev, Putin’s Russia is a stable, repressive regime.
This publication isn’t on my typical reading list but the title was intriguing and I’m glad I made the time. He notes that three times before (1905, 1917 and 1990 Russia collapsed under the weight of military spending. When the old USSR collapsed they had as he points out experienced a LOT of leadership changes in the 1980s. It led to possibilities:
When Gorbachev came to power, he instituted major changes across the board in policy that transformed the Soviet Union. Many of these new policies were not thought through and failed to achieve their objectives. But those changes did open up society in a way that allowed for freedom of expression and open political activities, which in their aggregate led to the collapse of the USSR. In contrast, Putin’s regime has worked overtime to create a repressive system that even surpasses that of the Soviet era in numerous respects and brooks no criticism from any quarter.
For oh so brief a time after the collapse of the USSR it looked like maybe Russia had a chance at becoming something better. Alas, though popular it turned out Boris Yeltsin wasn’t up to the moment. Worse a still youngish former KGB officer wormed his way into Yeltsin’s confidence. I freely admit it’s speculation but Yeltsin was after all not in the greatest shape himself. A heavy drinker if not alcoholic he was at an age where that catches up to people. Putin’s time in the KGB was as an analyst in an office but he had friends there. No doubt some were in departments that did somewhat darker work and I don’t think I need a tinfoil hat to suggest Putin might have helped hasten Yeltsin to his death.
Who knows? What we DO know is that Putin attained power and systematically and ruthlessly went about consolidating it. Things are as bad as, if not worse than the old days in the USSR when EVERYONE had to worry EVERYONE they knew, even family might inform on them if they expressed unfavorable views of their leader. So the author of the NSJ piece it correct – this is a very, very different Russia than back in 1991:
At the same time he notes some differences that might come into play. Like then the Russian economy is in a shambles. In particular he cites the amount of money former financial anchor, the giant energy consortium Gazprom had, due to the war in Ukraine become the least profitable company in Russia. And the problems aren’t limited to them:
The gas giant has plenty of company in the form of other major corporate giants that are also in the red. The Russian e-commerce firm Ozon suffered $450 million in net losses in 2023, as did the state aerospace and defense industrial corporation Rostec with losses of $360 million, and the social network VK, which is Russia’s answer to Facebook, at $360 million. These firms were among the five most unprofitable Russian companies in 2023—and the red ink continues.
The Russian military is badly chewed up to the point of almost being crippled. It lost a generation of bright and talented people who fled once it was clear a long and bloody war was inevitable. And on top of it all they no longer have gas and oil as an economic weapon against Europe. Even worse other major businesses on which they might rebuild a working economy are bleeding. I for one wonder why some rich oligarch wouldn’t just take their ill gotten gains and get the hell out? I suspect many will do just that and leave behind the worst among them. Then there’s the serious organized crime syndicates in Russia.
Russia proved unable to build a free country in the aftermath of the USSR. It’s even less able to do so now. Putin and Trump are soul mates in that both would willingly burn their own countries to the ground to save their own asses. If Putin really did love his country he’d ‘Declare Victory” and pull his troops out of all of Ukraine and demand ‘reparations’ from the west to rebuild. Given his control over the media he could even convince his people he’d done something awesome and that thanks to him the west was going to pay for fixing up Russia. AND prepare for new leadership which could continue singing that same tune.
Russia wouldn’t get what Putin would tell his people they will be getting but like Castro there’s got to be someone he can elevate to succeed him who can do what Castro did all those decades he ruled Cuba – take credit for anything good and blame the ‘Yankees’ for things not being the way he promised they would become. That’s the best we can hope for. Alas, I don’t see any chance of it happening that way. I see a bloody fight for control in a country that has nukes. So just as we need to think about what happens in the U.S. when Trump is gone (one way or the other) from power we need to be thinking the same about Putin and Russia because they too will be a mess. One without the kind of experience we’ve got with changes in who’s in power.
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