Valeri Gerasimov tried towards the end of February “sabotage the Russian offensive” in Ukraine, according to Pentagon documents leaked via Discord, the veracity of which was confirmed by the Biden Administration. The chief of the Russian Army General Staff would have waited until Putin was about to receive “a chemotherapy session” to redirect the offensive towards the south of the country.
The papers suggest that the general had the approval of Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council and one of the Kremlin’s hawks.
Gerasimov would have decided to change the plans for the first week of March, when the president was “unable to influence the war effort” due to treatment effects, collects one of the reports released by a user of this messaging channel known as OG, who worked at a US military base, as revealed by the Washington Post investigation. The document cites an unidentified Russian citizen as a source, with direct access to officials of the Presidency.
The highest authority of the Russian Army, opposed from the outset to Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine, had warned him on previous occasions that “the capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were superior to those of Russia” and warned that his Army “I would suffer many casualties if I continued with the offensive”underline the document.
Beyond reflecting internal discrepancies, the documents have once again scattered the rumors about Putin’s state of health. Speculation about his alleged illnesses has been a constant since he took office two decades ago, replacing Boris Yeltsin. But the leaked document, to which only members of the ‘Five Eyes’, the intelligence alliance that includes the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, had access at first, maintains that Putin is receiving in the current cancer treatment.
There is no evidence to confirm this version. The tons of rumor mill have eroded the credibility of the few solid indications that the Russian president has had – and has – serious health problems. In April 2022, the independent Russian media Proekt published a series of documents showing that he was under constant medical supervision. A team of specialists, including a surgical oncologist and two otolaryngologists, frequently accompany him on his retreats to his luxurious residence in Sochi, on the shores of the Black Sea. Nothing conclusive.
The biggest revelation to date was that of controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone. In a podcast broadcast last May, Stone, who directed between 2015 and 2017 an extensive documentary of interviews with the Russian president recorded in the corridors and offices of the Kremlin, for which he was criticized for his visible harmony with Putin, He assured that he “had cancer”, but that he believed that he had already recovered. She remains the only person who has had direct contact with the Russian leader to confirm the rumors.
“The president appears in public every day,” declared Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a year ago, when asked about Putin’s state of health on French television. “You can see him on the screens, read and listen to his performances. I don’t think sane people can see signs of any kind of disease or ill health.” The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, insisted on this line and described the information as a “fabrication”.
The reports are based on “rumors circulating within the intelligence community and the longstanding practice of Soviet-era Kremlinology, in which analysts examine the leader’s public appearances.” looking for signs of physical deterioration and clues as to who might be for or against, in the absence of reliable information,” writes author Katie Stallard in the pages of The New Statesman.
kyiv has tried to play this card to destabilize the invader. The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirilo Budanov, assured a few months ago that Putin “will die of cancer very soon” and that the race to succeed him as head of the Kremlin was already underway. “He has several serious illnesses, one of which is cancer,” he said in statements reported by the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper. Although at the same time he acknowledged that “he still has at least a few years left. Like it or not, that’s the truth.”
Putin was subjected to a strict solitary confinement after the outbreak of Covid-19. He spent much of his time at his residences in Sochi and Valdai, the latter halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Even his closest collaborators had to go through a period of quarantine to be able to sit at the same table as the president.
In the kitchen
The Pentagon documents highlight the deep knowledge which the United States has on the activities of the various Russian security organs. It is not surprising that the Biden Administration warned months in advance of the Kremlin invasion plans.
The documents show that Washington has had first-hand access to information from Gerasimov’s own General Staff, from the Defense Ministry headed by Sergei Shoigu and from the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU. Also from the oligarch’s Wagner mercenary network Yevgeny Prigozhin. However, Putin’s health remains an enigma.
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