This has been nine days since Putin made a public appearance, and media speculation about his location and state has (possibly) reached its peak. We go through the five most ridiculous media theories.
In the past week, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lack of public appearances has led to a flurry of theories in the media about his whereabouts. As the President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov has already established a difficult week of battling bizarre questions about his whereabouts. We decided to rank the utmost effective five.
5) He’s Dead
#EU leaders also looking for #Putin #WhereIsPutin pic.twitter.com/9hHmnYUZ3B
— chris wynnyk wilson (@CWynnykWilson) March 14, 2015
Somehow, this kind of audacious idea is not really at the very best of the list of most ridiculous theories. Simply reading the news headlines about President Putin’s acts and statements can show he should indeed be working, having proposed the creation of a fresh federal agency on nationalities, planned a meeting with the President of Kyrgyzstan, signed two laws, four executive orders and had a phone conversation with Armenia’s President.Prime Minister Medvedev doing his best Putin impression notwithstanding, an international conspiracy to conceal Putin’s death would have been a little over-the-top.
4) He Has Cancer, No, He Hurt His Back, No, No, I Know, He Had a Stroke (The Flu Maybe?)
Could Putin have gotten hurt doing judo?
3. He is Witnessing the Birth of His Love Child
2) He Was Overthrown in a Coup
1) He’s Binge Watching House of Cards
A Washington Post cartoonist suggested this 1, and, well, there isn’t much to really contradict it. Although press secretary Peskov hasn’t commented if Putin roots for Kevin Spacey’s character or Viktor Petrov, the fictionalized Russian President in the series, a very important factor is clear, Netflix’policy of release of all 13 episodes in 1 day is negative for anyone’s productivity.
This are often one of those instances when probably the most ridiculous solution has become the least impossible. Another option could be he pre-recorded a lot of meetings for TV, turned off his answering machine and went fishing, but that will mean being out of any office for things like talking to the Armenian President or signing several laws.
Overall, when there is a very important factor this media furor over Putin’s absence from the general public indicates, it’s that Putin has achieved a celebrity status surpassing that of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian put together. It’s up for debate if US President Barack Obama would receive exactly the same amount of media coverage if he decided to stay at Camp David for a week and not make any public appearances, but #PutinChallenge, anyone?
