Is Putin dying?
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Toby Gillis and Alex Deville. Last week, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky said Vladimir Putin is going to die soon. That's a fact. And it will all be over.

Zelensky didn't elaborate at all, but does he know more than the rest of us? Is Putin dying? Our guest today is the head of foreign policy at the new Eurasian Strategy Centre, John Luff. John, let's go route one, shall we? Is Vladimir Putin going to die soon? The answer is we don't know. There is a lot of speculation about his health.

And for some years, various people have been saying that he's got some form of cancer. There have been times when he's disappeared from the scene for a while, but he appears to still be functioning as president, and I would say quite effectively. There is almost certainly one or maybe even more than one double

who shows up at various events. And most recently, a lot of observers noticed that the figure who went to Kursk region in military fatigues who did resemble Putin was not in fact Putin. It's a person who looks very similar, but there's something slightly different about them.

But on more than one occasion, we've noticed somebody who appears to be impersonating Putin. I think there was a New Year's address, actually, maybe this year or the year before, where it definitely didn't either sound or indeed look like Putin. So you have to wonder why they're doing this. But the overall impression is when he turns up and does these four-hour press conferences,

that he's still physically there. He has always had a very good memory and that still appears to be functioning, maybe not as well as it did in the past, but he's able to command the stage. So rumors of his demise, I think, are at this stage exaggerated.

But John, a double does not mean he's ill, does it? I mean, maybe it's as simple as Putin just, I don't know, doesn't enjoy certain events and because he can avoid them, he might as well. Well, I mean, it could be any number of reasons, of course. But we do remember during COVID when he sat at an incredible distance from his ministers and military chiefs. That would suggest that he was indeed paranoid about catching the virus.

He was supposedly vaccinated, but goodness knows. So there may be a health reason of that kind. In the case of the visit to Kursk region, there would certainly have been some danger associated with that. But I think one's just got to be careful with, I suppose, the degree of speculation. We know that people have to go into quarantine before they meet with him, or at least that was the case, certainly during the COVID period and the immediate aftermath.

Secondly, you've got the evidence of the physical distance that he wished to keep from his close associates. I mean, beyond that, he does sort of bear the traces of Botox. There's no question about that. But could it be also these sort of swollen cheeks? Could they be related to some form of medical treatment that he's receiving?

This does still all feel somewhat speculative though. When it comes to Putin's health and possible health problems, what are we going off?

What I've heard from good Russian sources is that, yes, he probably has some underlying health condition, but it doesn't look as though it's something that's going to finish him off anytime soon. I've heard that perhaps it's leukemia, but I don't have the medical competence to speculate beyond that. My qualification is to try to diagnose what his thoughts are from what he's saying.

And that's a very different thing. And what we noticed there is that there is definitely a consistency of thought. But during COVID, something did seem to happen to him because he became absolutely obsessed by this question of Ukraine.

One might say that, you know, perhaps through the COVID period, allegedly he was only talking to people whose prejudices he shared, that these prejudices somehow reinforced themselves. And he emerged from that period from his bunker or wherever he was.

with his mind not entirely intact. And I think it is significant that for somebody over a long period, he seemed to be such a calculating decision maker, somebody who didn't want to take excessive risk. For him to mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the way that he did, knowing the risks he was taking with Ukraine's Western partners,

It was an extraordinary thing to undertake. John, do you think it's possible Zelensky, as the president of Ukraine, knows more than the rest of the world about Putin's health? Well, I mean, it's possible that the Ukrainians know through their channels. They are very adept when it comes to understanding certain things that are going on in Russia. They have their networks.

So I wouldn't exclude that possibility. I still tend to think it's unlikely. I suspect the Americans, up until the big war against Ukraine started three years ago, they had good advance warning of what Putin was going to do, which suggests that they had somebody on the inside who was feeding them information. I would have thought they probably had a better idea than most.

But again, who knows? These things, just in the case of Soviet leaders, their health conditions were kept very, very secret. Okay, so if he doesn't have inside info, why would Zelensky even make this claim about Putin? I think there's probably a good reason for that, which is he can see the Trump administration trying to build a relationship with Putin.

And that's obviously for Ukraine is concerning because their fear is that their fate will be decided by, over their heads, by two leaders, one of whom cares greatly about Ukraine because he wishes to control it. And the other probably dislikes Ukraine because of the grief it's caused him. So Ukrainians have real reason to be worried about that. And I think Zelensky is probably signaling that, you know, at the end of the day,

This is a Russian leader who physically, if you look at just health statistics in Russia,

is probably not going to be around for that long. So on Zelensky's part, I mean, he's got to play every card he can at the moment to try to show that Ukraine is in fact in a stronger position than many people think. And he's up against this messaging that's coming from Moscow, where this is what's being fed to Trump personally, that the Ukrainians are losing. And

There's no point in them continuing fighting because the Russians are going to roll them over. All these terrible things happening to them on the battlefield. But this is clearly a distortion of the truth. Final one, John. Suppose Putin did drop dead tomorrow. Might that prompt a change in Russia's direction of travel on Ukraine?

It's a big question. I mean, if there is a divide then in the political class about the issue of Ukraine, it would make it more difficult, I think, to prosecute this war.

There were certainly voices in the upper echelons of the Russian army relayed through retired generals that this was a very bad idea to go into Ukraine, that Russia would get bogged down and that they would end up ultimately weakening the country. And I think you can make a strong argument that that is exactly what has happened.

So I don't take it as read that there'll be a preservation of a consensus, if you like, to be at war with Ukraine. Instead, I think there will probably be an effort to find some sort of settlement. And it would be perhaps on more generous terms than Putin is currently offering. And his terms are effectively, you know, Ukraine's surrender. If a future Russian leadership would go down that road,

It would be very much appreciated by a number of governments in Europe and indeed by certainly the current US administration.

That might mean that Ukraine would have to settle for the fact that it was going to hold on to the territory that it's got at present that's currently not occupied, but it would definitely be able to continue as an independent country, would be free to choose its alliances, would be able to enter the European Union. And above all, and I think this is the absolutely fundamental issue in terms of preserving its sovereignty, it would be able to build adequate armed forces to do so.

So there would be, if Putin were to depart the scene very suddenly, that there could be a fairly abrupt revision of this policy towards Ukraine. Okay. John Luff, Head of Foreign Policy at the New Eurasian Strategy Centre. Thank you very much.

Now, assuming Putin stays alive and also manages not to anger Donald Trump too much, as he appears to have done recently, the US's softer approach to Russia is offering the Kremlin tactical opportunities. We explored them in our episode on March the 26th, Murder, Malware, Putin's Options After Trump's Shift. It is well worth a listen. For now, though, thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.

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