For years, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s health has been the subject of speculation and rumours – with claims he is suffering from an array of different ailments.
A recent video of the 73-year-old having a coughing fit during a presidential address has renewed attention on his health.
Putin could be seen clearing his throat before having a coughing fit as he gestured towards his neck in the video, which was deleted by the Kremlin shortly after it was uploaded to the official Telegram channel.
Although apparently a minor incident, it follows years of reported but unconfirmed claims about Putin including the suggestion he has Parkinson’s disease and battled cancer.
The Kremlin has previously dismissed any claims that Putin has a severe illness.
And Putin has always appeared to be keen to show the Russian people how durable he is by being pictured doing physical activities such judo, hunting and horse riding in propaganda photos.
Public appearances raise concerns
Speculation about Putin’s health has been compounded by a number of public appearances where he looked frail and tense.
In a recorded meeting with Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu in 2022, Putin could be seen tightly clutching his table throughout, and not letting go for the entirety of a 12-minute clip.
Questions were raised after he appeared to shake “uncontrollably” during a meeting with Belarusian president and ally Alexander Lukashenko in the same year.
Putin appeared to suffer from hand and leg tremors, while also at times clutching his fist to his body.
Parkinson’s disease
In 2024 Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of M16, said that Putin has something “fundamentally wrong” with him and that his health was deteriorating.
Asked on LBC about the state of Putin’s health, Sir Richard replied at the time: “I do not have a clear answer to that but I have contacts and friends still in Eastern Europe who think there is something fundamentally wrong with him medically. But I’m not a clinician.”
Expanding on what illness Putin may have, he said: “Probably Parkinson’s which of course has different representations, different variations, different seriousness.
“But if the man is paranoid, and I think the murder of Navalny might suggest a certain paranoia, that is one of the symptoms.”
Cancer
A former FSB officer claimed in 2022 that Putin had “no more than two to three years to stay alive”, and claimed the Russian president has “a severe form of rapidly progressing cancer”.
The unnamed officer’s speculated date has long since passed though the cancer claims have resurfaced a number of times over the years.
“We are told he is suffering from headaches and when he appears on TV he needs pieces of paper with everything written in huge letters to read what he’s going to say,” the Russian officer told the Sunday Mirror.
“They are so big each page can only hold a couple of sentences. His eyesight is seriously worsening.”
A similar claim was made by a former oligarch who was recorded discussing Putin’s health with a venture capitalist.
In the recording, obtained by US magazine New Lines in 2022, the unnamed individual claimed Putin had surgery just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
According to a report by Russian investigative news outlet Proekt in 2022, Putin has taken dozens of trips in the company of a cancer specialist and it has also been seen by two otolaryngologists – ear, nose and throat specialists.
The newspaper claimed that he regularly goes to the resort city of Sochi in the company of doctors from Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital.
Mini-stroke
Putin’s former speechwriter, Abbas Gallyamov, told the Daily Express in 2025 that Putin “definitely has some problems”, potentially even having had a mini-stroke.
“He definitely has some problems,” he told the newspaper. “Journalists are writing about cancer, but what we saw back in 2022 looked more like the consequences of a mini-stroke.”
Gallyamov was branded a foreign agent by the Kremlin and placed on a most wanted list in 2023.
What has the Kremlin said?
Putin himself previously dismissed speculation about his health as “gossip” in 2015 after he was not seen in public for more than 10 days.
On the occasions the Kremlin has commented on such speculation and rumour, it always dismissed them.
In 2020, Russian political pundit Professor Valery Solovei claimed Putin was under pressure from his inner circle to step down due to health problems. Solovei also suggested the Russian president might have symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov branded reports at the time as “absolute nonsense”.
“Everything is fine with the president,” Peskov said, adding that Putin was not planning to step down in the near future and six years later he is still in power.
