Is Putin Dying of Cancer? Among the many leaked classified materials that emerged in April was a document that could shed some light on the many rumors that have circulated in recent years about the health of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The document, which remains unauthenticated, details a conversation between Ukrainian officials about rumored plans to challenge Putin’s presidency as he allegedly undergoes chemotherapy.
The document went public after U.S. Airman First Class Jack Teixera, who was arrested in April, leaked a series of classified U.S. military documents online.
According to a report by the New York Times, the document reveals how a Ukrainian member of parliament, Yelizaveta Bohutska, claimed to be familiar with a plan by some Russian officials to “sabotage” the Russian president as he continues his military offensive in Ukraine.
Capitalizing on Time of Weakness for Putin?
According to Bohutska, some Russian officials were preparing to create a military problem in Ukraine for the Russians on March 5, a time when Putin was allegedly set to start a new round of chemotherapy.
The information was disclosed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, during a conversation on February 17. Bohutska claimed to have received the information from a Russian source but did not disclose the individual’s name.
While the document could be authentic, the claims made by Bohutska may not be.
Many of the documents released in the leak are likely real, and the 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member who released them has since been charged. Teixera, who is understood to have top-secret clearance, now faces two counts of retaining and distributing national defense documents and information.
The leaked document in question, titled “Ukraine Learns of Alleged Russian Plot to ‘Throw’ So-Called Special Military Operation By 5 march,” describes an alleged plot to sabotage Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as the Russian president himself.
The document describes how Bohutska learned that Russia was planning to divert resources from Taganrog, Russia to Mariupol, Ukraine, and “focus its attention on the southern front.”
According to the unnamed source, the plan was “suspected to be a strategy devised by Russian National Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and Russian Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov to ‘sabotage presumably Putin’ at a time when he was understood to be starting chemotherapy and ‘would thus be unable to influence the war effort.’”
While rumors of the Russian president being treated for cancer have circulated for some time, it is unknown whether the allegations outlined in the classified documents are true.
However, what does appear to be true is that U.S. intelligence agencies believe that the information could be true and that the rumor was considered significant enough to flag to the Pentagon.
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
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