Vladimir Putin has led Russia as either President or Prime Minister for over a decade. He is known as a brutal leader with terrifying ambitions for Russia. Recently, he has been making headlines as speculation swirls around his failing health - be that mental or physical. There have been wild rumours that the Russian President has even died and been replaced by a body double. His recent direct threat, targeting Latvia, has had people wondering if he is in his right mind.
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A recent anecdote he told about his mother has added yet more fuel to the fire. During a public meeting on Tuesday 5 December with youth group ‘Movement of the First’, Putin embarked on a story that made little sense. Here’s what he said, and how people have reacted.
Putin’s anecdote about his mother
Anton Gerashchenko, Ukrainian Interior Ministry advisor, posted a video and translation of Putin’s remarks on X. In it, Putin smiled widely when asked to recount his ‘kindest childhood memory’. He explained:
It's, you know, kind of a private thing. I'll tell you only the beginning of the story. My mom put me in a corner, I don't remember why.
This is when it gets a bit bizarre: the Russian President went on to tell a half-tale. He said:
For some time she was walking around, looking at me so harshly, asking me, 'Are you going to apologize or not?'
How that story ended, I'll tell you one-on-one. Well, I'll just skip part of it, it ended with her kissing me, getting me out of the corner, and that was it. That was the story.
And indeed, that was it. The sparsity of information and lack of storytelling flare in the Russian President’s words have people questioning if all is well with him.
Reactions to Putin’s perplexing story
According to Russia state media agency TASS, Putin was apparently 3 or 4 years old when this took place. Gerashchenko called for any psychologists to analyse what his story meant. One user, @Tim_Kelly wrote:
A plotless, narrative-free tale of sin and redemption.
On Newsweek’s coverage of the story, a reader joked:
Body doubles say the darnedest things.
Not a lot is known about Putin’s mother, though the Russian President has previously spoken fondly of her as he described growing up in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in a rat-infested building. However, many are seeing his recent remarks as proof that Putin is not currently functioning on all cylinders. Time will tell if this is true, though there are fears Putin could ‘live forever’ with the use of AI.
Read more:
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⋙ Vladimir Putin urges Russian women to churn out babies in effort to make up for war deaths
Sources used:
Newsweek: Putin's Story About Childhood Memory of Mother Raises Eyebrows
TASS: Putin reveals how his mother put him in time-out
