Vladimir Putin appeared
to have restless legs for the second time in a week during a speech to
young Russians in Kamchatka.
The Russian leader flew over
nine time zones to get to Kamchatka – a glaciers-and-volcanoes peninsula in the
Pacific – but questions surrounding the 69-year-old’s health were heightened
after a concerning display on stage.
Putin’s alleged health
problems have increased since his invasion of Ukraine earlier this
year, with some sources in Russia reporting that the Kremlin’s
president has Parkinson’s disease and cancer.
He appeared to bemuse his
audience of young ecologists as he tried to boast about how grand Russia’s land
is in an awkward, rambling speech while on stage with a microphone.
Resting his right arm on the
armrest and slouching, Putin said: “Our neighbour Japan is called the
Country of the Rising Sun.
“But further east from
Japan is Kamchatka, or Sakhalin [Russia’s largest island].
“Even further east is New
Zealand. And further east from New Zealand is Chukotka [a Russian province
almost touching Alaska].
“And then there is only a
60-kilometre-wide [37 miles] strait to America. In this sense the Country of
the Rising Sun is Russia.”
As he was speaking on stage,
he was unable to keep his feet from twitching as he slouched towards the right
side of his chair and circled his left foot while seated.
Putin also told the audience in the regional capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky: “There is an expression, and whoever told me about it, I promised I would reproduce it out loud in public sometime. You have to live for something to die for. As strange as it may seem in your humanitarian field, this is something worth living for.”
