Questions About Putin’s Health After Canceled Meetings & Vague Answers

The Interpreter

A ceremony to sign a treaty of integration between Russia and South Ossetia  scheduled for today March 11 was cancelled, RBC.ru reported, causing further speculation about the state of health of President Vladimir Putin.

The ceremony was to essentially formally annex South Ossetia, a breakaway territory from Georgia which Russia took over after the 2008 war with Georgia. A delegation had already arrived for the meeting from the capital of Tskhinvali, by24.org reported.

This was the second cancellation of a meeting on a priority issue for Putin; the first was the summit of the Eurasian Customs Union in Astana, Kazakhstan, which has now been postponed "for a few days," says sources in Kazakhstan, according to a Reuters report.

But Nezavisimaya Gazeta says that the reason the South Ossetia ceremony was cancelled was because the agreement was not sufficiently prepared. A vote of confidence was put on the agenda of the South Ossetia parliament regarding David Sanakoyev, head of the republic, who had published the draft agreement in the local press on his own initiative without the consent of the leadership. So there may have been valid reasons to halt the signing -- but it seems odd that it got as far as it did, with the participants already in Moscow.

Concern has been raised that two meetings that the official web site kremlin.ru said took place this week, with governors from Karelia and Yamal-Yenets, actually took place last week, and were only published this week. Sources say Aleksandr Khudilaynen, the governor of Karelia actually met with Putin last week, and Dmitry Kobylkin, governor of Yamal-Yenets was not in Moscow on March 10.

In the absence of any solid information, news broadcasts said to be made of Putin March 10 and March 11 are being closely examined. Do the calendars in the meetings with Kobylkin and Khudilaynen show single digits, indicating the filming was done last week?

Or is this not a calendar, but perhaps a stand with an inspirational quote?

Meanwhile, without confirmation of Putin's condition, and concern that meetings at the Kremlin reported this week in fact took place last week, Russkiy Monitor has gone ahead and published an email received by the editorial office claiming that Putin  had a stroke. 

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