Health Hoax? Russian Official Insists Putin ‘Fit and Well’ Following Report Leader Found ‘Lying on the Floor’ With His Eyes ‘Rolling’

In the latest update on a Telegram channel allegedly run by a Kremlin insider, it has been claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin suffered a "cardiac arrest".

Knewz.com has reported that it is not the first time that the channel, named General SVR, made claims about Putin's health.

In its latest update, the channel alleges that Putin was found by his guards "lying on the floor and rolling his eyes" in his bedroom on the evening of October 22.

The post states: “Yesterday at about 21:05 Moscow time, security officers of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who were on duty at the residence, heard noise and sounds of falling coming from the president's bedroom.”

“Two security officers immediately followed into the president's bedroom and saw Putin lying on the floor next to the bed and an overturned table with food and drinks. Probably, when the president fell, he hit the table and dishes and knocked them onto the floor, which caused the noise,” Telegram/General SVR.

Doctors were immediately summoned and the 71-year-old president was moved to a special medical facility in his home. Thanks to the timeous contributions of said doctors, according to General SVR, Putin soon regained consciousness but is currently in intensive care.

These allegations have since reached the ears of the Kremlin and prompted a response.

A statement by Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary, noted that the autocrat was in fact "fit and well".

He also dismissed suggestions of body doubles as an "absurd hoax", per WION.

But in a more recent update, the channel repeated its claims of Putin's ill health and the use of body doubles:

“Dear subscribers and guests of the channel!” the update reads. “While the unexpectedly well-coiffed double of Russian President Vladimir Putin is having a telephone conversation with the President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and meeting with the leader of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Kazbek Kokov, the real Putin lies in a room equipped as an intensive care ward in his residence, connected to equipment that monitors his vital parameters.”

After cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, the attending doctors assess the condition of the Russian President as stable and serious and consider the prospects without optimism,” per Telegram/General SVR.

These claims were preceded by earlier allegations also posted to Telegram. An October 21 article by Knewz.com noted another post indicating that the Russian president was so ill that he could barely hold a conversation with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The post even claimed that it was a body double seen at China’s Belt Road Forum.

Knewz.com also quoted the anonymous telegram poster: [...] "The double, on behalf of Putin, held telephone conversations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President Abdul-Fattah Khalil Al-Sisi, naturally, under the control of curators, but, in principle, he could have handled it himself."

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According to this Telegram contributor, Putin (on the day of the post) had a team of doctors in the next room waiting to “resuscitate” him should he crash.

These claims, like previous ones, have not been independently verified and have thus far drawn only denial from the Kremlin.