Is Vladimir Putin Dying?

What lends this story an air of credibility is a recent interview of Ukraine’s intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov by the Ukrainian news outlet Pravda. In the interview, Budanov claimed to have definitive proof that the Russian leader was not only sick with cancer but suffering from several ailments. He also claimed in the same interview that Putin was unlikely to die before the end of hostilities between the two nations.

This claim about Putin’s failing health sparked a media feeding frenzy especially in western outlets to the point that Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov had to fervently deny the rumors that Putin was at all ill. This isn’t the first time that media outlets have speculated about the health of Putin. Back in 2014, a number of eastern European media outlets, and the New York Post, reported that Putin was suffering from pancreatic cancer, something the Kremlin angrily denied.