Skip to footer

Vladimir Putin reappears after 10 days, longest absence in two years

Vladimir Putin met with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atanbayev Monday in St. Petersburg, Russia. "It would be dull without gossip," Putin said with a smile.

  • By Irina Titova Associated Press

| St. Petersburg, Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin resurfaced Monday, smiling and looking healthy after a 10-day absence from public view that has fueled a wave of rumors.

Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atanbayev, who met with Putin Monday in St. Petersburg's ornate Konstantin Palace, referred to the swirling speculation about Putin's health at the start of their conversation, saying that the Russian leader is in good shape. Atanbayev said that Putin drove him around the palace's park before the talks, adding that "the president of Russia not only walks, but speeds around."

"It would be dull without gossip," Putin retorted with a smile.

The 62-year-old Russian leader was last seen in public on March 5, when he hosted Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Kremlin insisted that he continued holding official meetings, and released photos and video of Putin at meetings on national television, but Russian media suggested the images had actually been shot much earlier.

Putin's decision to abruptly postpone a trip to Kazakhstan planned for last week fueled speculation that he was unwell or isolated by a palace coup. A Swiss newspaper claimed that Putin had traveled to Switzerland, where it said Putin's reported girlfriend — former Olympic gold-winning gymnast Alina Kabayeva — had given birth to their baby. The Kremlin has denied all those allegations.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov greeted reporters Monday with sarcastic remarks: "So, have you seen the president paralyzed and seized by the generals? He has just come back from Switzerland where he attended the delivery."

Asked if Putin's condition required treatment by an osteopath, the spokesman retorted: "Yes, the osteopath was with the generals."

The sarcastic remarks appeared to reflect the Kremlin's dismay with rumors and its inability to stop them from spreading.

On a more serious note, Peskov added that the Kremlin has grown tired of refuting speculation about Putin's condition. "The more we talk about it, the more intense (the speculation) becomes," he said.

On more serious note, Russia was ready to bring its nuclear weapons into a state of alert during last year's tensions over the Crimean Peninsula and the overthrow of Ukraine's president, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks aired on Sunday.

Putin also expanded on a previous admission that the well-armed forces in unmarked uniforms who took control of Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea were Russian soldiers.

Putin's comments, in a documentary being shown on state TV, highlight the extent to which alarm spread in Russia in the weeks following Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's ouster in February 2014 after months of street protests that turned increasingly violent.

(Reporting by Jim Heintz)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Vladimir Putin reappears after 10 days, longest absence in two years
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0316/Vladimir-Putin-reappears-after-10-days-longest-absence-in-two-years
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe