Putin's health rumours may have been spread by Moscow officials, Ukrainian intelligence claims

Over the last few weeks, the rumour mill has been churning out story after story about Vladimir Putin’s health. A Russian Telegram channel claimed that the Russian President had suffered a cardiac arrest at his home on Sunday 22 October. Since then, the same channel has been pushing further stories, including one that claims Putin is dead and his body is being stored in a freezer.

The Telegram Channel is called General SVR, and claims to have insider information from Kremlin officials. However, it is known for spreading unverified reports and rumours concerning the Russian President. And now there’s been a new development: a representative of Ukraine's Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), told NV Radio that Russian officials spread these rumours themselves to gauge how the public would react to the news of Putin's death. Here’s everything you need to know about who might have spread the rumours and why.

What the Ukrainian intelligence agent said

The rumours about Putin’s cardiac arrest and death were rejected by the Kremlin. Dmitry Peskov, an official Kremlin spokesperson, said the claims were a ‘complete hoax’. Similarly, this Ukrainian intelligence agent, Andriy Yusov, has said not only are the rumours false; they have been spread for a specific reason.

Indeed, he says the rumours were started by Russian officials and slot right into their ‘playbook’. In essence, they injected the claim that Putin had died into news circulation to see whether people would be happy or sad about it. He said on the radio show:

This is sweet music for Ukrainian listeners, and it should have been good news.

It's an internal story that is intended for an internal Russian audience.

He went on to explain why the news circulated so quickly:

Of course, it does little to help Putin personally, because there are many supporters of conspiracy theories in Russia.

Indeed, many UK publications picked up the story of Putin’s death and there was a lot of online activity around the subject. Agentstvo, the Russian investigative site, reported that searches ‘dead Putin,’ ‘dying Putin’ and ‘Putin died’ had over 417,000 impressions on Russia's most popular search engine, Yandex, last month.

Why Russian officials would have spread these rumours

Vladimir Putin is a terrifying leader; he’s the product of a rough childhood and career in the KGB. However, in recent months chinks have been beginning to show in the armour. The Wagner group’s coup, though it failed, showed that not everyone in Russia adores Vladimir Putin. He is quick to stomp this sort of thing out - the group's leader, Prigozhin, is now dead - but it certainly put his leadership into question.

Yusov explained what Russian officials wanted:

The basic purpose of fake news is to look at how society reacts in terms of numbers and dynamics—whether they believed it, how they reacted, what they are ready for—and to look at the reactions of individuals, the elite and the media (even propaganda outlets).

It makes sense in many ways - a dress rehearsal is always a good idea after all. And it helps to prepare for future plans:

In this way, the empire, which is built around its security apparatus, is learning how to further manage things.

The Kremlin is yet to comment on this claim, but it seems unlikely that its members will hold their hands up and admit the rumours came from them.

Read more:

⋙ 'People are dying': Two of Putin's allies are talking about peace agreement between Russian and Ukraine

⋙ Is Putin dead or alive? Outlandish claims Russian leader's ‘corpse was placed in a freezer’ surface

⋙ Putin humiliated in front of his ‘dear friend’ Xi Jinping in Beijing

Sources used:

Kyiv post: 'Putin is Dead' News Meant To Gauge Russians’ Reactions, Says Ukraine Intel

Newsweek: Putin Death Rumors Were Spread by Russian Officials: Ukraine Intel