For months, rumors about the supposedly poor health of the Russian president have not ceased. A new bizarre rumor even suggests that Putin has already died and is now being impersonated by body doubles.
At first glance, it’s a bizarre rumor, but one that has already had real consequences – Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke out and denied the death of the Russian president. “Everything is fine with him,” said Peskov. People should not fall for fake news.
However, in October, search queries on the search engine Yandex, which is popular in Russia, related to Putin’s alleged death spiked to over 400,000. Speaking to the German news website Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, British historian and author Mark Galeotti explains: “Here we see a clear sign of growing distrust in Russian society (…). For two decades, Putin has relied on a cult of personality plus a lack of transparency. It is exactly this combination that is now coming back to haunt him.”
Image: Kremlin.ru, Vladimir Putin (24.06.2023), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (image size changed)