Russian state TV shows Putin nervously biting his lip
As the war in Ukraine rages on and sanctions start to bite the Russian economy, more and more questions are being asked about Vladimir Putin’s leadership credentials. New footage has added further fuel to the theory that the Russian President’s health is in rapid decline. Putin could be seen swaying and biting his lip during an Easter service in Moscow, and he was also seen pressing his forehead and closing his eyes tightly at times. The latest footage comes just days after Putin was filmed gripping the corner of a table during a meeting.
Experts have speculated that Putin’s actions and increasingly “frail” movements indicate he could be suffering from Parkinson’s disease, though the Kremlin denies any claims he is unwell.
Questioning Putin’s leadership, however, is nothing new as unearthed accounts reveal his approach to dealing with the public and press changed forever more than two decades ago.
In August 2000, nuclear submarine Kursk headed to the Barents Sea to participate in a large-scale naval exercise.
At 11:29am local time on August 12, 2000, an underwater explosion was detected. A second one was recorded just over two minutes later, but this one was 250 times larger than the first.
All 118 personnel on board were killed, yet Putin failed to even acknowledge the disaster for more than a week.
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The Kursk disaster damaged Putin just months into his first term as President. (Image: GETTY)
Putin was spotted pressing his forehead during an Easter service in Moscow. (Image: GETTY)
Just three months into his first term as President, Putin had been on holiday on the Black Sea and only addressed the incident after his reluctant return to Moscow.
As word of the disaster spread, Russia finally accepted Western help. British and Norwegian divers finally accessed the Kursk nine days after the incident, and found all of the crew dead.
A former Putin ally admitted the Russian President was “paralysed with fear” over the disaster.
Speaking to journalist Catherine Belton for the 2020 book ‘Putin’s People’, the former ally said: “He didn’t know how to deal with it, and therefore he tried to avoid dealing with it.
“The Norwegians and others were calling in with offers of help.
Putin’s handling of the disaster was the subject of fierce criticism. (Image: GETTY)
“But he did not want them to uncover that everyone was dead, and so he just refused the help — which, of course, made everything worse.”
Putin eventually met the family members some 10 days after the disaster, with access strictly controlled.
Two Russian journalists from Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Kommersan posed as family members and attended the meeting, witnessing distraught mothers and widows howling at Putin.
Nadezhda Tylik, mother of one of the dead, accused Putin and his Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov of lying.
She yelled: “You better shoot yourselves now! We won’t let you live, b*******!”
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All 118 men onboard the Kursk died. (Image: GETTY)
According to an archived report in the St Petersburg Times, she was forcibly injected through her clothing with a sedative when she refused to be quiet.
Putin hit back in the meeting, blaming Russian oligarchs for Russia’s economic and military decline.
He said: “There are people in television today who… over the last 10 years destroyed the very army and fleet where people are dying now… They stole money, they bought the media, and they’re manipulating public opinion.”
In the months that followed, Putin’s government brought Channel One — one of his fiercest critics over the handling of the disaster — under state control.
Boris Berezovsky, Channel One’s owner, was forced to sell his stake under duress and fled the country.
Putin cracked down on the Russian press after the Kursk disaster. (Image: GETTY)
Likewise, free-to-air TV channel NTV was forcibly seized from media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky.
Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin adviser, told the Financial Times last week that Putin’s approach changed drastically after the Kursk disaster.
He said: “After Kursk, he changed. After Kursk he started to take very seriously who says what.”
Since then, he said, the Russian media has become a government arm tasked with “creating a reality that absolutely doesn’t exist”.
Some 22 years after the Kursk disaster, Putin is facing similar questions. Families of those onboard the Moskva ship, which sank earlier this month, have no idea what happened to their relatives, with contradicting claims coming out over what actually happened.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence initially said all crew had been rescued, but announced on Friday that one sailor had died, 27 were missing, and the remaining 396 had been rescued.
Putin’s radio silence over the Moskva sinking earlier this month is just another indication of the Kremlin’s desire to prevent the public from getting accurate information.
Journalists daring to question Putin’s regime ever since the Kursk disaster have been murdered, beaten and hounded out of Russia.
Since Putin invaded Ukraine in February, the crackdown on media outlets has intensified dramatically.
Numerous independent media outlets have vanished without a trace, and those who publish “knowingly false information” about the war in Ukraine now face up to 15 years in prison under new legislation introduced last month.