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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVladimir Putin Has Vanished
Putin Has Vanished, but Rumors Are Popping Up EverywhereMOSCOW Wheres Putin?
The question obsessed Moscow and much of Russia on Friday, as speculation mounted as to why President Vladimir V. Putin had not been seen in public for more than a week.
He abruptly canceled a trip to Kazakhstan and postponed a treaty signing with representatives from South Ossetia who were reportedly told not to bother to fly to Moscow. Most unusually, he was absent from an annual meeting of the top officials from the F.S.B., Russias domestic intelligence service.
The rumor mill went into overdrive, churning out possible explanations from the simple to the salacious to the sinister. He had been stricken by the particularly devastating strain of flu going around Moscow just now. He sneaked off to Switzerland for the birth of his love child. He had a stroke. The victim of a palace coup, he was imprisoned within the Kremlin. He was dead, aged 62.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/world/europe/russia-putin-seen-in-public.html?_r=0
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,762 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)It's like clockwork, very regular.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Did you hear the rumor that Paul is dead?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)greyl
(22,990 posts)edit to add: Putin being the troll, of course.
Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)...I read it on the internet!
Oh, wait... actually I just made that up so I guess I wrote it on the internet
Ghost
mikehiggins
(5,614 posts)Get a couple of actors to play Obama and Putin and have them sit at ringside at Wrestlemania. There are any number of guys out there who look enough like either man, and can talk like either man, to raise a question with the audience. Top it off by not letting anyone talk to either or ask any questions and I'd be willing to bet there'd be a lot of people who'd believe it.
Just sayin...
bigtree
(86,013 posts)elleng
(131,292 posts)A Swiss tabloid reported that Mr. Putin had spent the past week accompanying his mistress, the Olympic gymnastics medalist Alina Kabayeva, to give birth in a clinic in Switzerlands Ticino canton favored by the family of Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister. (It would be the third child, none confirmed.)
Imagine that!!!
CTyankee
(63,926 posts)Love child? OMG, no way...
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,398 posts)They both ate some bad kimchee.
edbermac
(15,950 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)It's better in motion!
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)It's just so hard.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)Cha
(297,935 posts)TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Hey zappaman, where are you?
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Purveyor
(29,876 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Did he give those back?
HeiressofBickworth
(2,682 posts)Even despotic dictators need a vacation now and again.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Or it could be flu--he looks like shit in these pics:
:large
Then again, he looks a bit jowly too--and he's a vain guy.
Or maybe they're replacing him with "Viktor Petrov" from House of Cards? Hey, he's big enough, he's tough enough, and damn--people are intimidated by him!!!
still_one
(92,492 posts)Warpy
(111,417 posts)Going shirtless isn't a great idea most of the time, no matter how macho you want to think you are.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)I heard he is riding on the back of a rocket toward an asteroid heading toward earth. He will take it on, bare chested (his preferred style of fighting) armed with just a knife.
Didn't Russia and North Korea get wood over each other? Maybe he is teaching the new Kim how to do a proper high and tight.
I have power bar hair dammit!
PCIntern
(25,623 posts)He's binge-watching House of Cards wherein the Russian President continuously outfoxes the Americans and, as a bonus, gets to kiss the First Lady on the lips for an extended period.
MANative
(4,113 posts)Best reply of the day!
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]